VALDOSTA — Valdosta State head football coach David Dean is looking forward to getting his team back together in the coming weeks and is pleased with the turnout for workouts this summer.

“We’ve had a lot of guys here this summer,” Dean said. “It is a good thing about having the office where it is now, you can look out and see them working. I think Coach (Michael) Doscher and his staff have done a great job with them. I’m looking forward to seeing how in shape they are when we get going on the sixth.”

The Blazers will hold their first official practice of the fall Aug. 6. The team will come together Aug. 4.

“That’s always exciting, when you start fresh and bring everyone in for the first time,” Dean said. “When you meet as a team for the first time, that is exciting.”

Valdosta State enters the 2012 season with a lot of excitement surrounding it. After finishing 6-4 last season, the Blazers have many starters and key players returning from last year’s team that was 1 minute and 42 seconds away from finishing the year 9-1 and grabbing the No. 1 seed in the region. Instead, the Blazers were 6-4 and left out of the playoffs.

“We went back and looked, and we were about six plays away from being 9-1,” Dean said. “We are not going to dwell on it all that much. I know it is in the back of their minds. It is in the back of our minds as coaches. But we are not going to dwell on it. There is nothing we can do about it but learn from the mistakes we made and not let them happen again. Hopefully the maturity we have at some key positions will help with that.”

Among the Blazers’ top returnees is at quarterback. For the first time since 2007, Valdosta State will enter a fall camp knowing who the starting quarterback is, and not having to endure the unknowns that surround a quarterback battle. This year, the starter is redshirt junior Cayden Cochran, who started VSU’s final four games of the 2011 season.

“Huge,” said Dean of Cochran. “The last time we had that was Willie Copeland in 2007. So every year we were always in a battle for the quarterback position. Our players know who the starting quarterback is going into camp. He knows who the starting quarterback is.”

Dean said it would take a “very, very poor” camp by Cochran for another quarterback to take the starting position away, even though the Blazers have a lot of “talent” at the quarterback position, says Dean.

True freshman Kaleb Nobles and transfer Graham Craig will be the primary two backups, along with Justin Roberts, who will also serve as the team’s holder on extra points and field goals.

“Those three guys, I think, are sitting in a position where they will push (Cayden),” Dean said. “I think that will only make him better, but it is his position to lose.”

With so many key players coming back, it will likely be a season that features many teams aiming for the Blazers, especially after the season they had last year.

“Any time you mention Valdosta State, you are going to be a target, and we understand that,” Dean said. “You can look at it two ways (if you’re an opposing coach). ‘You know, they went 6-4 last year, they are on a down slide.’ But you can also look at it as, ‘Yeah they were 6-4, but they were 1:42 away from being 9-1 and making a run through the playoffs.’

“Knowing the injuries we had last year, a lot of people outside of our little group, guys we play and coach against, know we had a lot of injuries in key situations.”

The Blazers will likely receive a high number of votes when the preseason polls are released for Division II football. Dean said he doesn’t buy into those polls, and believes that the real test is when games begin in September.

“I don’t buy too much in polls,” Dean said. “There is so much change and turnover in Division II, and there is probably some guy sitting in an office out there in Omaha, Neb. that is ranking everybody. And there is no way that he could see all 145 Division II football teams in the spring and make an evaluation.”

Valdosta State opens its season Sept. 1 at Saginaw Valley State (Mich.).

For a complete in-depth breakdown on the Blazers, make sure to pick up an edition of the VSU Grid Times Book in late August.