CEDAR CITY, Utah, July 31 - Southern Utah football team begins preparations for its first season in the Big Sky Conference and its 50th season as a four-year football-playing institution next week as the Thunderbirds open fall camp on Monday.

Next week's schedule calls for 90 players to report for camp on Sunday with the first workout scheduled for Monday morning. The team will hold one full practice daily at 10:00 a.m., with afternoon positional sessions scheduled for 3:30 p.m.

"I'm really excited to get started," Head Coach Ed Lamb - who is entering his fifth year at the program's helm - said. "This has been the best team I've ever been around, as a player or as a coach or otherwise. They've worked incredibly hard, they've made a sacrifice and a commitment to each other, the vast majority of them have stuck around all summer and never went home, they've trained every day. It's been a fantastic summer, I can't wait to see them get going in training camp."

Lamb also said that one of the priorities of the first week of camp is to instill the team's work ethic and culture into the newcomers and to see the team come together.

"So many of our veterans are really in tune to our culture of practice and work ethic and the way we do things on a daily basis, from meetings to weight room to the practice field to just behavior in the community, my first priority is really to get that culture spread throughout the whole team, with particular emphasis on the new guys who are coming from different types of programs that have maybe some different things that are emphasized, wherever they were at," he pointed out.

The Thunderbirds open the season Aug. 30 at Utah State, then travel to UC Berkeley for a game against Cal on Sept. 8. The home-opener is Sept. 15, when New Mexico Highlands visits Cedar City, and the first Big Sky game is Sept. 22 at Portland State.

SUU hosts Montana State live and in high definition on ROOT Sports in its first home Big Sky matchup on Sept. 29, a game which is also SUU's homecoming contest.

SUU then hosts Sacramento State on Oct. 6 before traveling to Montana on Oct. 13. The final two home games are scheduled for Oct. 20 and 27, when the T-Birds host Weber State and Eastern Washington, respectively.

The team then wraps up the regular season with two road games, traveling to North Dakota for a Nov. 3, contest, and to Northern Arizona for a match-up on Nov. 10.

Thunderbird Practice Schedule:

Week One: The team will practice in helmets-only at 10:00 a.m. on Monday and Tuesday, with positional run and lift sessions in the afternoons at 3:30. On Wednesday and Thursday the team will practice in limited pads before the first full-pad workout on Friday morning. The team will also practice in full pads on Saturday at 10:00 a.m.

Weeks Two and Three: The team will continue with its morning practice at 10:00 a.m. and afternoon positional work at 3:30 through the week, with the first full scrimmage slated for Saturday, Aug. 18, at 10:00 a.m. and a second scrimmage on a date to be determined. The annual meet-the-team watermelon bust will be Aug. 25.

Week Four: With the beginning of classes on Aug. 27, the team will begin its in-season schedule, with single practices daily at 4:00 p.m. and the season-opener at Utah State on Thursday, Aug. 30.

Thunderbird Quick Hits:

• SUU is entering its 50th season as a four-year football-playing institution and its 27th as a member of the NCAA. The 2012 season also marks the Thunderbirds' 20th as a member of the NCAA's Football Championship Subdivision and is the school's first in the Big Sky Conference. SUU competed in the Great West Conference the past eight seasons.
• The opener at Utah State marks the eighth time in the last 10 seasons the Thunderbirds have played their first game of the season on the road, including the last three in a row. Last year SUU opened at South Dakota State, in 2010 it opened at Wyoming. The other openers at the road during the past 10 years came at Air Force (2008), at Montana (2007), at Idaho State (2005),at Weber State (2004) and in 2003 the opener was at Nevada. The two openers at home were in 2009 against Dixie State and in 2006 when the 'Birds kicked off the season against Montana Tech at Eccles Coliseum.
• The Thunderbirds have four preseason all-American and three preseason first-team all-Big Sky honorees on the roster this fall, and return five players who were all-Great West Conference performers in 2011.

Quarterback Brad Sorensen - the Great West's offensive MVP in 2011 - was tabbed as a first team preseason all-American by The Sports Network, was named to the Payton Award Watch List for the second straight season, was named the Big Sky's preseason Offensive Player of the Year, and earned second-team preseason all-America honors from College Sports Network (with Montana State QB DeNarius McGhee earning the first-team nod). He was a first-team all-Great West performer following both his sophomore and junior seasons.

Offensive linemen Zach Brackus and Gavin Farr both earned preseason all-America honors, with Brackus named to the first team by CSN and to the third by TSN while Farr was a TSN first-teamer and a CSN second-teamer. Brackus was also a preseason first-team all-Big Sky selection and both players earned all-GWC honors the past two seasons, with Farr garnering O-lineman of the year honors in 2010.

Defensive tackle Cody Larsen also earned first-team preseason honors from the Big Sky as well as second-team all-American honors from both TSN and CSN. Larsen was a first-team all-GWC performer last season and a second-teamer in 2010.

The fifth returning all-GWC performer from 2011 is linebacker Chad Hansen, who earned first-team recognition from the media and second-team honors from the coaches last year as a sophomore after leading the team with 104 tackles, including a team-high 53 solo stops.

• SUU has eight returning academic all-GWC honorees, including Larsen, senior offensive linemen Russell Petersen and Dylan Fox, junior defensive lineman Brad Meyer (who had the only 4.0 GPA among football players on the list), junior cornerback Tyree Mills, junior linebacker K.C. Rawlinson, sophomore defensive lineman Kouri Jones and sophomore receiver Easton Pedersen.
• SUU plays 10 of its 11 games against NCAA Division I opponents this year, with eight against teams from the championship subdivision and two from the bowl subdivision. Utah State and California are the two FBS opponents and SUU faces a Division II opponent for the first time in two seasons when it hosts New Mexico Highlands.
• Half of the players on the roster are Utah natives, with 46 hailing from the Beehive State. California is the next-most represented state, with 25, while eight call Nevada home. Four players come from Texas, with two from Florida, Idaho and Washington, and one each from Arizona, Colorado and Tonga.

-- SUU --