The football team’s first practice of the new school year was not impressive, head football coach Gary Patterson said Tuesday.

The coach said neither side of the ball played well, and the offensive unit had to run after practice because it performed poorly.

“It’s not uncommon [with] the first day of classes,” Patterson said. “But [LSU] had the first day of classes too, so we’ve got to get ourselves better.”

Patterson said the young team will travel to AT&T Stadium to practice and prepare before the game on Aug. 31.

“This will be the youngest team that we’ve ever put into [a game of] this kind of magnitude,” Patterson said.

Offensive line questions:

The offensive line is one area of the team that is young and inexperienced, and just as he did with the quarterback position, Patterson declined to name who would start along the offensive line against the Tigers.

However, the team is better at center and both tackle positions compared to last season, according to Patterson. The coach said the team’s guards need to play better.

Aviante Collins, who played as a freshman last season and had problems with penalties, returns at left tackle.

Patterson said Halapoulivaati Vaitai, who Patterson calls “Big V,” is playing better at right tackle than last season’s starter, Tayo Fabuluje, who left the team in July.

Joey Hunt is the likely starter at center, and Patterson said he showed great improvement over the summer.

At guard, Eric Tausch is likely to start on the left side. Jamelle Naff, James Dunbar and a number of others are in the mix for the starting right guard position. Backup Michael Thompson also left during camp.

Purple, black…and red?:

Patterson said that he likes what Nike has done with the new uniforms for the season opener, which are scheduled to arrive on Friday.

When asked if he had input on what Nike did with uniforms, he said, “Always.”

Some fans have said on Twitter that they don’t like that the uniforms for the LSU game have red in them, but Patterson noted that for a previous season, Nike showed TCU a design that was all black and red, which he rejected.

However, Patterson said he liked these uniforms when he was first shown the designs.

“I liked it from the very beginning, so we didn’t change it,” he said.

#FearTheCleats #GoFrogs pic.twitter.com/L2oDGHzoIR

— TCU Football (@TCUFootball) July 25, 2013