VALDOSTA –– Rome wasn’t built in a day and good things take time to come together.

No matter the cliche’, the Valdosta Wildcats football team didn’t exactly hit the ground running on the first day of spring practice.

While it certainly felt good to take the field for the first time since late-November, head coach Alan Rodemaker let it be known to his group he wasn’t happy with its effort and disposition to start the spring.

“I enjoyed it out here,” Rodemaker said of the first day. “But I was disappointed. I really know the first day is a first day, but I expected more out of our kids today. From an understanding standpoint, we put on the helmets and the pads and it was a crap shoot today. … That wasn’t us.

“It was not a good first practice to me. Now I know we’re excited, but we were just brain dead today –– a lot of mental mistakes, I understand those but I just expect a lot more from this football team. And we’re gonna get there but I wasn’t happy at all with today and I don’t think any of our coaches were.”

On offense, the first and second units got plenty of reps as senior starting quarterback Tate Rodemaker split snaps with sophomore backup Mike Miller. Miller impressed with several deft throws downfield, while Rodemaker made his share of precise throws to receivers on the edges and across the middle of the field.

After being wide-eyed at the start of spring last year, Miller looked much more comfortable on Wednesday.

“Some of the good things I saw was that we’ve some guys on the perimeter that can make some plays,” Valdosta offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Josh Crawford said. “Of course I’ll have to go back and look at the tape, but Mike Miller, who was a freshman for us and our backup last year, I thought he was much better in his first day today than he was last year. He’s definitely had some growth this offseason so I’m looking forward to seeing him progress.”

At the end of practice, Crawford preached to his offense the need to perform to a higher standard.

With a nearly all-new starting group along the offensive line, led by returning starter Mark Anthony Audain, as well as young depth behind the starters at the skill positions, Crawford wants to see a more consistent motor from the offense.

“The thing is –– even though we have a lot of the first-team guys returning –– behind those are a lot of young guys, especially at the skill (positions),” Crawford said. “This was the first time for a lot of them being part of a varsity practice. A lot of them kind of struggle with the pace of it.

“From a philosophical standpoint, we want to be a no-huddle, uptempo team. We’ve got to play with a sense of urgency on every play and on every down, whether it’s the beginning of practice or the end of practice. Toward the end there late, I thought we lost a little bit of our edge in that department. … It’s Day 1, we’ll get there.”

A critical aspect Crawford has pinpointed for the offense is developing leadership and taking ownership of the team. In Crawford’s estimation, it starts with the quarterbacks first and foremost.

“No question, it starts with the position I coach and that’s the quarterbacks,” Crawford said. “They’ve got to be the undisputed leaders of the team. I tell them all the time, ‘You’ve got to be extensions of me on the field.’ From the quarterback standpoint, we’re working on being better with vocal leadership, taking more command. From the skill guys, and even Mark Anthony Audain and other guys returning, I want them to be taking more ownership from the standpoint of coaching on the field and setting the standard to those young guys, whether it’s at the beginning of practice or it’s at the end. 

“Listen, they did some decent things last year as a group. My whole argument to them is let’s not take a step back but let’s take a step forward even more from where we were last year.”

Rodemaker acknowledges that the running game struggled to get going, but also liked the fact the offense was able to do some things through the air. Rodemaker wants to see more physicality on defense, citing poor tackling as an issue after Day 1.

Speaking of defense, defensive coordinator and outside linebackers coach Justin Montgomery liked what he saw from his unit on Day 1 despite some first-day sloppiness.

“This is Valdosta,” Montgomery said with a grin. “In Valdosta, we’re gonna hit, especially on the defensive side of the football. We saw some good tackles, we saw some guys that were playing good football but it’s not quite the physical practice we wanted to see on Day 1. We’ll get better on that.

“Day 1, we had some sloppy mistakes we’ve got to fix and we’ll go back and watch the film and make sure we correct those for (today). All in all, effort-wise, I thought it was a pretty good day –– still not where our guys want to be, but for Day 1, you don’t feel real great and you don’t feel real bad. That’s where we’re at –– it’s heavy evaluation and heavy competition for us right now.”

Montgomery oversaw a ‘Cats defense that gave up 441 total points, the most in school history, last season –– his first as defensive coordinator.

The challenge for Montgomery and the other defensive coaches is finding a way to improve on that side of the ball to better assist the team’s high-powered offense.

“Last year was the worst defense we’ve ever had here so it’s very important for us (to improve),” Montgomery said. “Coach Rod has built a great defensive culture down here and last year was my first year here so I take it very personal for the amount of points we gave up, the amount of big plays we gave up. 

“This year, that’s all we’ve preached this offseason; we’ve got to establish it now. It means something to play defense in Valdosta and if you’re not prideful in that, then you don’t belong with us. The things we’ve got to make sure we do a great job of is communicating, identifying formations well, over-communicating and just knowing where to line up and where our eyes are supposed to be. If we get there, we’ve got enough talent on this defense that we’re gonna be able to play some good defense.”

From the start of spring practice Wednesday, there are exactly 100 days between now and Valdosta’s season opener against Glynn Academy Aug. 9.

With its first practice out of the way, Rodemaker expects a better showing in today’s practice despite what he called largely “a wasted day” in terms of enthusiasm.

“I just felt like we’d have a better understanding,” Rodemaker said of his team’s approach. “But it’s different. It’s different now than when you’re sitting in air conditioning and you’re telling me what to do and where do I line up and then you come out here with pads on the first time. … They’ll be better because of this. I think they’ll come back (today) and have a good practice then we’ll have three days off. Even taking into account this was the first day, I still didn’t think it was good enough.”