At a lot of spots on defense, the Fresno State football team is set, or, at a minimum, the Bulldogs at least have an idea where the pieces best fit.

Rodney Mathews and Charles Washington are competing to start at strong safety, and that will work itself out. Tyeler Davison will rep some at defensive end this week, but he started every game at nose guard last season in earning first-team All-Mountain West Conference honors, and without question will be on the field at one of those two positions.

The linebacker positions, inside and out, same thing.

One of the few areas where coach Tim DeRuyter, coordinator Nick Toth and the rest of his defensive staff are looking for an answer is with the nickel packages.

Sophomore Shannon Edwards played some snaps there last season and he is in the mix. But the staff needs to find a replacement for Cristin Wilson, the former walk-on who, Toth said, did a great job with it.

Edwards fits, but the Bulldogs will start to look at options for a No. 1 and backups during the 10 remaining spring practices and again in the fall, when junior college transfer Tray Hall and high school recruits Treshon Broughton, Justin Holmes and Randon Knotts join the secondary.

"We have to start looking for another one to rep there," Toth said. "You'd love to play Charles there, but if Charles is going to start at strong (safety), you can't do it.

"You want to put Jamal (Ellis) or one of those other guys there, but if you pull Jamal away from corner, every time you rep him at nickel, he's not repping at corner. We have Tray Hall coming in, and we have a couple of guys coming in that I think might be able to do it.

"You rep a couple of guys in the spring and then it's totally open when you come back in the fall, see what happens with it."

Lesson learned from live hit

The Bulldogs ran some live periods at the end of practice Monday, their first hitting this spring. They flew around pretty good.

But the physical nature of practice started well before they went live, and redshirt freshman safety Dalen Jones and the younger players watching learned a lesson there.

In team run, running back Marteze Waller came through the line running right at Jones. It didn't appear that the safety was expecting big contact but he got it -- Waller, who has been known to finish runs on the practice field, just plowed him.

Jones got Waller down, but he was flat on his back at the end of the play and he heard about it from Toth.

"You know, you have to make your decision when you get in those drills," Toth said. "You're either going to be physical and deliver it and get yelled at for being too physical, or you're going to catch it and get your face knocked off -- and I don't want guys that are going to catch.

"I want to yell at them to pull it back, and Dalen learned that from that drill. Dalen, he's not afraid to hit, but he got in there and was a freshman. You better get in there and smack. You better get in there and go. But he learned a lesson, a lesson you probably have to learn as a freshman."

Jones recovered nicely the rest of the way. Said Toth: "After I yelled at him early in practice, Dalen got better."

Bumps and bruises

There were a couple of injuries and the Bulldogs are lucky they weren't more serious. Waller went down with a right leg injury; DeRuyter said it was a quad. Waller spent the rest of practice on the sidelines with ice on it.

Cornerback Sean Alston was on the wrong end of one of the biggest hits in the live periods, trying to make a tackle on running back Malique Micenheimer.