Idaho State’s offense shows out in spring football game

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) - The Idaho State football team concluded their spring season on Saturday with their annual spring game at the ICCU Dome.

Head Coach Cody Hawkins is entering his second season as the leader of the program and has improved the Bengals in a multitude of areas since he joined the team.

Hawkins decided to make this year's spring game in full-pads, even allowing the quarterbacks to get tackled during the scrimmage. Despite the contact, the Bengals offense performed quite well.

Returning starting quarterback Jordan Cooke and his backup Jackson Sharman spilt most of the first team reps during the scrimmage. Each QB had multiple touchdown passes and impressive throws.

"This spring was way better than when I first got here," Cooke said. "I think the O-line looks really good. They've been doing really well. Our run game starting to look really good and is coming together well. Some of our receivers looked great. I'm just really proud of the team. I think we're headed in the right direction."

The standout of the spring game was UNLV transfer wide receiver Jeff Weimer. Weimer showcased himself as a deep threat with multiple catches of 30+ yards and a couple of touchdowns.

"What really got me interested was Coach Hawkins, with how upfront and honest he was and what he's looking for and the type of culture he's trying to create here and and the culture that's already involved," Weimer said. "So I just believe that it was gonna be a great fit for me."

"Spring practice this year is just better in every way than it was last year, because I think every time you've done something once before, you have the opportunity to improve and we try and get better practice to practice," Hawkins said. "But you can see over the course of the year, the entire team culturally, developmentally, the energy, the efficiency of how we practice, even the way we used facilities was better. And so our guys are really able to focus on improvement."

The Bengals will open their season on Aug. 31 traveling to Oregon State to face the Beavers.