MADISON — The dreary months of winter have come and gone and so has a significant portion of the offseason. Wisconsin football completed its sixth of 15 spring practices, officially closing the pages on the first third of spring camp.

BadgerBlitz.com had boots on the ground inside the McClain Center and will be in attendance for the duration of spring.

Here are some notes from Thursday’s practice:

I should’ve known it would have been a messy day for the offense when its first snap of walkthroughs was fumbled. All four quarterbacks threw an interception and there was at least one other fumble – a dropped pitch from Darrion Dupree.

There was a third potential fumble in 11-on-11s on a pass to Chris Brooks, but it was ruled an incompletion rather than a catch and fumble. Regardless, Brooks redeemed himself later in practice, hauling in a back-shoulder ball from Billy Edwards for a score.

Edwards has been plagued by inconsistency this spring, and throughout the first half of practice, he was solid. Then it fell apart. Edwards had a few poorly placed passes for incompletions, and threw two interceptions – his first turnovers since practice No. 1.

The first interception was a result of exceptional defense by Austin Brown, who jumped and reached over Joseph Griffin to snag the football. The second was just a poor decision by Edwards, who threw across his body while rolling left and didn’t get enough velocity on the pass, allowing Ricardo Hallman to step in front of the receiver and make a play.

Still, there were plenty of positive plays for the offense, mostly from under-the-radar players. Redshirt freshman Emerson Mandell performed well at right guard with the ones, a position Kerry Kodanko held the last two practices.

Until Thursday, it had almost exclusively been Dupree, Dilin Jones and Cade Yacamelli working with the first and second teams. Gideon Ituka entered that conversation by seeing some action with the twos. At 5-foot-9 and 227 pounds, Ituka offers a different body type than his fellow running backs while still having enough speed for breakaways. He showed that speed with a run of around 30 yards, and he also flashed solid contact balance – albeit against withholding tacklers.

Finally, true freshman Eugene Hilton made play after play during team drills. He started by turning short catches into larger gains through his speed and elusiveness before reeling in passes downfield later in practice.

Two particular plays stand out: Hilton jumped and caught a pass from Milos Spasojevic on the right sideline, and while he came down, the defender attempted to make a play on the ball but ripped Hilton’s helmet off instead. Hilton held on and made the catch. He also caught a pass around 25 yards downfield from Carter Smith up the left sideline and got both feet down for the toe-tap completion.

Tight ends Grant Stec and Tucker Ashcraft saw plenty of run with the ones and each caught a few passes.