  We present the investigation of the strong bare-coupling regime of SU(2)
lattice gauge theory with 8 fermion flavors in the fundamental representation.
The simulations are performed with unimproved staggered fermions and the
plaquette gauge action. One bulk phase transition is observed through the
measurement of the plaquette. The results of cold-start and hot-start
simulations, as well as the hysteresis study, indicate the order of this
transition can be weakly first order. Using the smeared Polyakov loops, and a
method inspired by the constraint effective potential, we study the vacuum
structure near the confining-deconfining phase transition. The Dirac operator
eigenvalue spectrum is investigated, where further analysis is needed to
clarify the properties of the chiral phase structure.
