Spring is in the air. That usually means baseball. The crack of the bat, the pounding of the mitt.

Most people look forward to spring. Unless they play football.

That's right, it's time to toss the pigskin again. The Lions begin spring football practices tomorrow, and it's not exactly a favorite time for players. There are no games to prepare for, it's just practice, practice and more practice.

"Nobody looks too much forward to it," said tight end Kyle Brady, who will miss two weeks because of off-season knee surgery. "We really go at it pretty hard, as far as hitting, because we know we have the whole summer to recover . . . It's long. It's boring. There's no game to look forward to."

Some players, however, look forward to spring ball.

Tisen Thomas sat out all of last season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He said he is anxious to return to the field even though he won't be able to participate in the full contact drills for a few weeks.

"I just want to take everything in stride," Thomas said. "The improvement will come."

During the past week the team has undergone some changes as it prepared to begin practice. On Saturday, quarterback Matt Nardolillo decided to leave the team and not use his final year of eligibility.

At the beginning of last season, Nardolillo appeared to be the man to beat for the starting job once Tony Sacca completed his career. But redshirt freshman Kerry Collins passed Nardolillo on the depth chart midway through the season, and became the No. 2 quarterback behind Sacca.

Nardilillo decided to leave rather than compete with John Sacca and Danny White for the backup spot.

Another change took place on the sidelines. On Wednesday, Coach Joe Paterno announced that Craig Cirbus, an administrative assistant in athletics for the past two years, will return to on-the-field duties. Also, offensive line coach Bill Kenney was moved off the field to the team's recruiting coordinator.

"We feel these moves will considerably strengthen our overall football opperation," Paterno said in a released statement.

Cirbus will now work with the offensive line. He joined the full-time staff in 1987 and worked with the defensive line, outside linebackers and tight ends.

Kenney fills the void left when John Bove left the staff to become Penn State's compliance coordinator.

"(Kenney) was a good motivator," Brady said. "He was decent to all of us. He respected us and treated us fairly. It's not a great thing to see him going."

The obvious difference between this spring practice and last year's is inexperience at quarterback. Collins holds the No. 1 position now, with John Sacca and White behind him. The coaches use the spring to see who stands where on the depth chart.

"This is usually where positions are won. We find out who's going to be playing for us next year," kicker Craig Fayak said. "Once we get back into preseason practice we're just going to try and get ready to play."

The team will have five practices without pads and 10 practices with. The spring practice culminates in the annual Blue-White game at 1 p.m. on April 25.