UTRGV football took to the practice field on Thursday for the first padded practice of the spring.

The Vaqueros continue to work on integrating some new players on offense after much of their production at quarterback and skill positions departed following last season.

“Offensively a lot of question marks,” Vaqueros head coach Travis Bush said. "Obviously a lot of our production is gone with Eddie [Lee Marburger] and our receivers. So really trying to identify who those guys are gonna be and once we do that through the summer, we can build out packages of what they do best.”

One of the big-name additions to the UTRGV offense this recruiting season was Garret Rangel. The redshirt junior, who spent time at Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech before coming to UTRGV, expressed what he feels has been the focal point in these early days of practice.

“We preached physicality today because if you're gonna win a game, it's gotta be physical,” Rangel said. “The coaches have said that the team last year was definitely the most physical team in the conference. Some other coaches have said that too, so today was the first day of full pads, we gotta start that new year of physicality. Today was a good start, we gotta keep going. We’ve got a long way to go.”

The Vaqueros will wrap up their first week of practice with one more session on Saturday.