Mississippi State held its first practice of the spring and coach Mike Leach described it as one of the Bulldogs’ best practices recently.

Leach said both sides have plenty to be happy with, and plenty to be upset about, which is typically a sign of a good scrimmage.

“Then we were able to line up with (third string players) and it actually looked like football,” he said. “I was pleased with that just from a potential depth standpoint.”

Leach’s philosophy on scrimmaging is to see execution when it’s live, but also control all the reps while working all the parts of the field. Some people play better in that setting, so “you kind of want to see who’s rising.”

“It was one of our best practices, so that’s a good time to take a step, but then also sometimes people make more out of a scrimmage than there is,” he said. “And they kind of take themselves out of plays, and we did a little of that, but not very much.”

Asked about right tackle Scott Lashley, Leach said he’s steadily improved this offseason and early in spring.

Leach also was impressed by freshman QB Daniel Greek’s debut.

“I thought he looked really good,” Leach said. “I would say that was one of the more impressive freshman debut performances I’ve seen. I thought he played really well. Played smart, a lot of times those guys will try to make too much happen, or just because they’re anxious, what’s in their head goes out the window. But I didn’t think he did, I thought he played within himself and just very methodical, meticulous going down the field and actually had a couple checks, too, that I thought were good.”