SPEARFISH - For Todd Lambrecht, the Black Hills State Football Camp might mean a little more to his team than the others that were there for the four days of football activity.

The first-year Spearfish head coach is trying to learn about his team and get it used to him in the process.

"This just allows us to get a jumpstart on what we are doing," Lambrecht said. "We are trying to get a base and a feel for each other. It is more just verbiage and trying to get each other's terminology down."

Lambrecht, who came to Spearfish from Mitchell, Neb., after being hired this summer, brought 26 kids to the camp along with several coaches, who are working hard to get their system in place. While there are some slips along the way, the new coach cannot fault his players' effort.

"Our guys are learning fast," he said. "We had a couple of hours of practice (Sunday) to (Monday) and it has been a huge jump so I am pleased."

Rapid City Stevens brought a group of freshmen to the camp with the goal of learning the offense more than anything.

"We are trying to implement things that hopefully they will carry into the fall," Stevens head football coach Paul Ferdinand said. "We are not giving them the whole playbook, but just have them begin that transition to high school football."

Team building is also something that the coaches believe comes from the camps, bringing their players together and getting their full attention over several days.

The camp, which is divided into two sessions this week, has eight large schools participating through Wednesday, including local schools like Spearfish, Sturgis, Rapid City Stevens and Douglas, before the small-school camp starts for 16 more schools. More than 200 kids are taking part in the first session and more than 400 will participate throughout the week.

The camp allows coaches to work with their teams, has individual drill sessions, supervised scrimmages between teams and 7-on-7 drills in the evening.

"Their day is pretty well lined up for them," Black Hills State head football coach Jay Long said. "They do an offensive individual period, then they do some team time, then they scrimmage the other teams here. Defensive individual period and team time follows that and then they scrimmage again. In the night time, we come back and do 7-on-7 where it is scored and it is intense."

The scrimmages allow the coaches to see their players in a different environment and getting adjusted to new looks for perhaps the first time.

"The kids get that adrenaline going and hit someone," Lambrecht said. "It gets them excited and keeps them motivated."

Long looks at the camp as a form of spring football for high school teams.

"It allows teams to install things, and they can compete against other teams and see any weaknesses before fall starts," he said.

Much of the individual work that the BHSU coaches put into the camp deals with football basics.

"We are trying to work their technique stuff," BHSU offensive coordinator John Reiners said. "Working with quarterbacks, we work with arm strength and accuracy and footwork is very important.

"We want to find things that will help make improvements for freshmen all the way to seniors."

The high school coaches are not the only ones that find the camp beneficial.

"For recruiting, it is great because we actually get to see the kid practice," Long said. "Here, everything we do at Black Hills State is about effort. So when we watch drills, we get to see how they finish things, how hard they work and other intangibles like if they are leaders."