ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — The UAlbany football team kicked off their spring ball session Monday afternoon, and there’s a lot of excitement about this team that brings back a lot of experience from last season.

Head coach Greg Gattuso and his team are focused on making the most of spring ball as they prepare for the upcoming 2023 fall season. A glaring takeaway from Monday’s session was the energy the players brought to the field. Junior defensive back Larry Walker Jr. believes the start to things spring session has really set the tone for what’s to come for the program.

“I mean, it feels great! The energy was high today like in my four years of being here the energy has never been this high on the first day,” Walker said. “Especially like with school and everything behind it, today is a great start off to something we can start in. For instance, I’ve been here since 2019 I was a true freshman on the 2019 team, and it’s like we’ve never had a winning season since then, and all the close games that we had it’s just because of ourselves so now we have to turn it up because if we don’t, we’re just going to be another team that came through UA without a winning season.”

Gattuso is entering his 10th season as head coach and understands the feeling this time of year brings to his team and the fans.

“We’re excited,” Gattuso said. “I think this time of year brings that type of excitement, and we have a lot of work into the group we have here this is an experienced football team coming back.”