Many have the perception that practice for a June Jones-coached offense resembles a shooting gallery, with receivers scurrying around all over the field and an army of quarterbacks flinging passes to every corner of the field.

The scenario is not entirely inaccurate. Position drills are not a matter of a quarterback dropping back and delivering a downfield strike to a receiver. Instead, the Mustangs usually have four quarterbacks tracking a quartet of receivers, launching enough passes every day that Jones and assistant head coach-offense Dan Morrison insist that the sheer volume of passes thrown is the top reason the quarterbacks’ arms grow stronger.

Quarterbacks Stephen Kaiser (left) and Conner Preston (right) will be two of five passers battling for a starting role in August (photo by PonyFans.com).

This spring, however, is a little different. The Ponies’ top two quarterbacks from last season are gone — J.J. McDermott was a senior in 2011 and Kyle Padron is transferring. That leaves the team with two scholarship passers, Stephen Kaiser and Conner Preston, and walk-on Garrett Krstich. Wide receivers coach Jason Phillips has stepped in as an extra quarterback, just so there are enough passes being thrown to the legions of wideouts.

For all intents and purposes, the Ponies will have a brand new quarterback on the field when they open the 2012 season at Baylor. Yes, Kaiser threw one pass in SMU’s 28-6 win over Pittsburgh in the BBVA Compass Bowl in January, but that’s it. Preston and Krstich redshirted.

Former Texas quarterback Garrett Gilbert has said he is transferring to SMU, and there are many who assume he will walk in and start immediately. If he doesn’t, it is assumed Kaiser and Preston will battle for the job, while Krstich and incoming true freshman Neal Burcham wait their turns.

So the spring is less about settling spots in the quarterback hierarchy and more about further growth and understanding of the offense, and neither offered any speculation about who is where on the depth chart. Kaiser has taken the first snaps with the first-team offense in seven-on-seven drills and team (11-on-11) drills, but that means nothing other than the fact that he’s a year older, as he, Preston and Krstich all rotate, two plays at a time.

Kaiser and Preston each said they are not focused on any kind of passer pecking order right now, and each offered a fairly positive review of his own performance this spring.

“I think I have done pretty good,” Kaiser said. “It’s a little different, getting this many snaps, because when J.J. and Kyle were here, I spent a lot of time sitting back and watching, doing mental reps. It’s better to see and do what you’re supposed to do, rather than just watching.”

“For me, it has been a lot more fun, because I’m getting more reps,” Preston said. “We would watch film with Coach Morrison and go to meetings, but then when you take the field … it’s hard to be out there watching most of the time.

“You know the offense, but only so much until you take the field. We go in to meetings with Coach Morrison and we have questions all the time. We’ll be seniors and still have questions, though. Now, after practicing more, every time I get the ball I’m confident I’m going to throw a touchdown. It doesn’t always happen, but that’s the attitude.”

In a sense, this year marks the first full offseason for both quarterbacks. Yes, Kaiser is a year ahead of Preston, having just finished his redshirt freshman season while Preston was a true freshman in 2011, but Kaiser lost just about all of the 2010 season because of illness and was admittedly weaker during last year’s spring workouts.

“I’m not going to lie,” Kaiser said. “With the mono, I lost a lot of weight and a lot of strength. The doctors said it could be a long time before I felt the same as I did before I got sick. Plus, I developed some bad habits when I didn’t practice, so when I started to feel my strength coming back, my body felt a little sore, but I corrected those.

“When I first came back, my arm motion was wrong, and I felt like I couldn’t get the ball 30 yards. I thought, ‘Can I not do this anymore?’ I was discouraged, but the arm came back.”

For Preston, spring workouts have meant his first opportunity to really run the offense.

“For this position, comfort level is huge,” Preston said. “Last year, a lot of the time, I was one rep and out. Now I get in the huddle, I look the guys in their eyes. I helped run the scout (offense) last year, and when you do that, you go over your own offense, but you’re also learning another team’s offense each week. So we’d throw routes in skeleton drills, but didn’t learn as much as we do now. Now we’re in meetings, we’re watching film, and we’re getting more reps on the field.”

The wild card in the quarterback equation is Gilbert, the former Longhorn passer who was among the nation’s most highly touted recruits when he came out of high school. He’s bigger than Kaiser and Preston, but will he be better than players who already have a grasp of the offense? That remains to be settled in August.

“It doesn’t bug me at all,” Kaiser said when asked if the assumption by some that Gilbert would assume a starting role immediately bothers him. “He has a lot of hype around him, and he should — he was one of the top recruits in the country and he played at a high-profile program. When you get a chance to add a player like that, it’s going to make your team better. You welcome him in and compete, and if he doesn’t earn the job, someone else will earn it by playing well. Having him here will make all of us better players.”

Equally diplomatic, Preston said the competition with Kaiser, Krstich, Gilbert or Burcham is not going to do anything to affect the way he works and competes for the quarterback job.

“Honestly, I’m just trying to enjoy all of it,” Preston said. “When it starts to feel really serious, you have to step back and remember, ‘I’m playing in a college program, a Div. I program.’ As (SMU strength coach) Mel (de Laura) always says, I want to enjoy the experience. These are supposed to be the best years of your life, right? You have to make sure you have no regrets after four years.”