Aggie fans got their first taste of the New Mexico State football since last year’s Arizona Bowl victory Saturday afternoon when the team took the field at Aggie Memorial Stadium for an intrasquad scrimmage open to the public.

NMSU still has a long time until they open the 2018 season hosting Wyoming on Aug. 25, but head coach Doug Martin and the Aggies still have a lot to figure out before then. Players need to be developed and evaluated and schemes need to be implemented for the upcoming year, and spring camp is where that begins.

Last year’s senior class left some pretty big holes to fill, with the team’s leading passer, rusher, receiver and tackler all finishing their careers as Aggies in 2017, so this is also the time when players start to step up and embrace their new roles.

The quarterback competition is easily the biggest story for NMSU considering the importance of the position and this being the first year without Tyler Rogers on the roster in years, but some light was finally shed on the position battle for the first time all offseason.

Junior college transfer Matt Romero was the first quarterback to take the field Saturday afternoon and appeared to get most of the first team reps throughout all phases of the scrimmage, with senior to-be Nick Jeanty —the most experienced of the signal callers on the roster — coming in second. The trio of Josh Adkins, Cameron Matthews and Jeremy Hodge all rotated with the third group, but it should be noted that Adkins got the most burn out of the redshirt freshmen.

While the offense was pretty vanilla for a number of reasons, Romero was impressive, especially during the red zone portion of the scrimmage, where he orchestrated back-to-back touchdowns in his two opportunities from inside the 20. Romero also showed off his scrambling ability, keeping some plays alive that had no business succeeding.

Moving the ball was especially tough near the end of the practice during third down situations. The offensive line was clearly fatigued, which is fair, considering that the team doesn’t even have enough linemen to field two full units.

The lack of offensive lineman is also why there will be no spring game for NMSU this year, but going forward, depth in the unit could be an issue.

There were still signs of encouragement for an offense that faced far more roster turnover than the group lined up on the other side of the ball, though. Out of 75 plays, there was only one turnover, and that was the result of an unlucky tip after a drop. Jason Huntley also looks ready to pick up right where Larry Rose III left off and Christian Gibson looked solid as the secondary back.

That being said, it was the defense that really put on a show for a majority of the day.

A lot of that may be because of the limited playbook and predictable offensive line struggles, but as a group, the defense looked fast, and that’s a good sign regardless of external factors.

Frank Spaziani’s guys flew to the ball and applied pressure on seemingly every drop back, reaffirming the dominance of last year’s pass rush that compiled a school record 43 sacks. With so many players from last season’s squad returning, another big leap for the defense could be in store in Spaziani’s third year as coordinator.

It’s too early to make any guarantees and the depth chart is far from solidified, but this is the time answers to preseason questions at least begin to develop. Games may still be over five months away, but the 2018 season has officially started.