Utah State opened its most optimistic football-season practices in years Saturday with a couple of no table no-shows in senior Kirk Johnson, who had moved from backup quarterback to probable starting tight end in spring practice, and second-string center Armando D'Avila.
Despite the no-shows, Coach Chuck Shelton said he has never before been involved in this kind of a preseason camp in which he can force-feed so much information to his players because they are nearly all veterans. "This is a team that can handle it," he said, adding that physical testing Thursday and Friday showed the 1991 Aggies to be the biggest, fastest and strongest he's had in six seasons at the school.Johnson was the Aggies' starting quarterback in 1989 and for the first few games of 1990 until transfer Ron Lopez took over for good in the fourth game. With Lopez and transfer Greg Angelovic considered this season's top two quarterbacks, Johnson was switched to tight end by the coaching staff during spring ball and performed well enough that Coach Chuck Shelton had recently pronounced him the starter going into preseason camp.
Tight end is the only offensive position at which the Aggies do not have a returning starter this fall.
Johnson's departure leaves senior Kevin Rice as the leading candidate. He is the only Aggie with varsity experience at the position, though he does not yet have a pass reception. His strength is blocking.
D'Avila, a junior-college recruit last season, appeared in four '90 games and started at Missouri with regular Warren Bowers out.
There were four other no-shows and two unexpected walkons for the Aggie program, leaving Shelton with 93 players on campus and one sophomore tight end, Blake Nichols of Brigham City, who is not scheduled to report until school starts.
The other no-shows are sophomore defensive tackles Travis Wood (32 tackles as a freshman) and rookie Bert Gomez, backup freshman kicker Chad Blackwell and freshman quarterback prospect Tony Banks, who signed a professional baseball contract.
The new walkons are inside linebacker Tim Leonard of Fullerton (Calif.) Junior College and freshman quarterback Justin Robinson of Burley, Idaho.
Weber State is holding only orientation meetings this weekend with the first scheduled practices set for Monday. Coach Dave Arslanian greeted 87 players Friday night and Saturday, with no surprises.