After the Stanford football team’s first week of spring practice — the first week without Andrew Luck in over three years — redshirt junior outside linebacker Chase Thomas only had one word to describe what it was like to be back between the lines.

 

“It’s weird. It was weird coming out here the first day of spring ball and not having those guys out here,” Thomas said.

 

Unusual emotions aside, the Cardinal completed its first session of spring practice on Saturday afternoon, marking its first foray into a world without number 12 running the show. Naturally, all eyes are on who will fill the void left by Luck, and on the five quarterbacks competing for Luck’s vacant spot.

 

After just a week of practices, the open competition appears to have narrowed down to just two leaders — sophomore Brett Nottingham, Luck’s primary backup last season, and junior Josh Nunes, who was the primary backup two seasons ago.

 

The two quarterbacks split time with the first team offense and could both audible to new plays at will throughout Saturday’s scrimmage, but head coach David Shaw was unwilling to claim that one quarterback was nosing out the other at this point.

 

“It’s still pretty open; we’ll evaluate this [session], but we’re not gonna make any decisions during spring,” Shaw said. “It’s just more information gathering. We tell them to approach every single day like it’s a game. They’re battling, they’re fighting it out. Both guys have executed, both guys threw some nice balls today, both guys made a couple mistakes today.”

 

In the first session of spring practice, Shaw promised that all five quarterbacks would get equal practice reps, but the head coach also mentioned that it would be too hard to maintain that egalitarian attitude when the Cardinal returns to the practice field after finals and spring break. For now, that means that Nunes and Nottingham will take their duel for the starting spot into the next practice session, which begins on April 2.

 

While the quarterback duel will continue to get most of the attention as spring practice winds along, Shaw also took time to highlight that other position groups did exist and were performing quite well.

 

“I would say the outside linebackers have just been phenomenal, and the running back position too,” Shaw said. “Even without Tyler Gaffney and without Anthony Wilkerson, Stepfan [Taylor] has been outstanding, and Ricky Seale has been great.”

 

Shaw also specifically highlighted freshman Kelsey Young’s impressive first session, as the Norco, Calif., native impressed at both wide receiver and running back.

 

“He’s been kind of that X-factor for us,” Shaw said. “We’ve moved him around a little bit and he’s shown speed and explosiveness. We’re not sure where we’re going to use him or how we’re going to use him, but he made some plays out there today.”

 

“What we’re going to do is make sure he has some kind of a package so he can help us,” Shaw continued.

 

Shaw also complimented the play of the outside linebackers, one of the most experienced and talented groups on the team. Thomas echoed his coach’s sentiment and attributed the defense’s impressive play to the smooth transition from last season.

 

“Our defense is flying around and playing around a lot faster than I’ve seen us play in the past,” Thomas said. “I think that just goes along with the experience. We haven’t had a change to our defense like we did the last couple years, so that definitely allows us to play faster and more aggressive up front.”

 

Thomas also pointed out that the secondary, which will have to replace three departing starters from the 2011 team, also had a good first week.

 

“We might have lost three guys, but I don’t feel like we did,” Thomas said. “Barry Browning and Terrence Brown all played a significant amount of football last year, same with Devon Richards and Jordan Carrington. And Wayne Lyons was playing a good amount before he got injured, so we have a lot more depth and experience back there than people give us credit for.”

 

But no matter how good both sides of the ball looked in the first practice session, Shaw said that the offense in particular still had a long way to go before it begins to look like a finished product, especially along the offensive line.

 

“There’s nobody that’s really separated themselves at the right guard or left tackle position, which would have been nice if there was, but that just leaves the competition open,” he said.

 

Shaw also added that the offense hadn’t installed the entirety of its playbook, instead choosing to feed the playbook to the new group of quarterbacks in small, deliberate increments.

 

“We went this whole session without putting in any red zone on either side of the ball… no red zone, no short yardage, no goal line. A lot of base and third down was what this was about, so we’ll put in a little more situations in the next session.”

 

Shaw said the Cardinal would also return a couple of players in the second session of spring who had been held out of the first session with injuries —  namely, defensive end Kevin Anderson and linebacker Patrick Skov. Wide receiver Ty Montgomery, who injured his hand during the first week of practice, might also return to the field in the second session.

 

For now, while the Cardinal players have three weeks off for dead week, finals and spring break, Shaw and his staff will stay busy building for the future of Cardinal football.

 

“We go full speed into recruiting,” Shaw said. “We go right into our spring recruiting. We’ll evaluate this session, start to script and get ready for the next session of spring, and start to get some ideas ready for [fall’s] training camp.”

 

The Cardinal will return to the practice field on April 2 and wrap up its spring practice on April 14 with the annual Cardinal-White Spring Game at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium.