University of Houston Athletics
Cougar Football Notes
11/6/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 6, 2001
For the third consecutive weekend, the University of Houston Cougars will be on the road as they travel to Louisville, Kentucky, to take on C-USA front-runner and No. 25-ranked Louisville on Saturday afternoon at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium. As the Cougars look for their first victory of the season, practice on Tuesday (Nov. 6) afternoon once again centered on the "little things" and keeping the team on track.
"This has been a little bit harder week," second-year head coach Dana Dimel said of the overall mood of the team this week. "Last week we thought we had an opportunity to go down to Florida and get ourselves our first victory of the season. We thought it was probably one of our best chances to get that done.
"We're just trying to come out and fight our tails off," he said of the upcoming contest against Louisville. "And try to get some early success in the ball game.
The strength of the Cardinals, who cracked the ESPN/USA Today Top 25 poll this week following their win over Tulane last weekend, lies in their offense and starting quarterback, Dave Ragone.
"They have a great quarterback, but their defense has improved a bunch over the last four weeks," said Dimel. "Our big challenge will be to try to attack and have success against their defense, and for our offense to get back on track and have success against their defense. If we can do that, it might shock them a little bit because they've been leaning on the defense so much the last couple of weeks."
Another point of interest in this upcoming ball game is Louisville's aggressive defense has forced a remarkable 27 turnovers in nine games this season.
"Defensively, we're still not performing well. When we went back and watched film, the defense did some things better (against South Florida), but they're still not doing things well enough to win a football game,"continued Dimel. "And that's where we have to get to...where we are doing things well enough to win games because our offense, I think, will kick it in and we'll get ourselves back offensively on track."
And for the Cougars that means sophomore quarterback Nick Eddy, who completed just 14 of his 34 passes for a seaon-low 139 yards against South Florida last weekend in suffering his second straight subpar performance, must bounce back and be a leading force against the 8-1 Cardinals this weekend.
The Cougars hold a 6-4 advantage over Louisville in the 10-game series since these two schools first met in 1950.
Houston senior wide receiver Orlando Iglesias, who became just the third receiver in school history to have at least 200 catches last weekend at South Florida, enters this weekend's game with 201 career receptions. As for his school-record reception streak, Iglesias currenlty rests at 40, which is the fourth-best such streak among Division 1-A receivers. In addition, Iglesias rests in second place all-time with 2,647 receiving yards, surpassing former Cougar Manny Hazard's (1989-90) 2,635 yards.
Following the Cougars' game against the Cardinals, they return home to Robertson Stadium for the final home contest of the year as they host UAB on November 17 at 7:00pm.
