Oregon launched spring practice Thursday morning with the first of 15 sessions over the next month and a half.

Afterward, coach Dan Lanning spoke with reporters about the differences this spring compared to his first with the program last year, a few players catching his eye at this point, his new assistant coaches and more.

Watch the full interview here and scroll down for a complete transcript of his comments.

Opening comments:

"Really good Day 1. I haven't been around a lot of spring practices that weren't good Day 1. Everybody has juice and energy, a lot of enthusiasm. I thought practice was well-organized, guys were running to the right locations, and with a lot of new bodies you hope that's the expectations, guys playing hard, but we don't have pads on either so it's not real football yet in my mind. But guys are definitely trending in the right direction. I see some new guys stepping up to be leaders, which is a positive, and really excited about the direction we're headed."

What are the main questions you want to answer this spring?

"I'm not really there yet. Ultimately, you want to figure out what the strengths of your team are and then you want to make sure you're doing a good job as a coach leaning on those strengths. But we want to play with maximum effort, make sure we have a good understanding of what we're doing fundamentally, what our scheme is and how we fit within that scheme. But we're not even past break right now -- today I'm focused on today."

Can you mention who those leaders are jumping out?

"It would be hard to mention one or two, but a guy that really stands out to me going into Year 2 is Josh Conerly. This guy's working his tail off in everything that he absolutely does -- the way he stretches, just the way he approaches everything, his mentality in the classroom as well. Jamal Hill is a guy on defense who's really stepped up, has shifted and been in different locations but really showed some maturity there. Jeff Basso, Bo, I think there's several guys, and I'm probably definitely remiss not naming some of those."