University of Houston Athletics
Rice Preparation Begins for Cougars
8/27/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 27, 2001
With most of his first and second teams secure, University of Houston head football coach Dana Dimel ran his Cougars through a light afternoon drill before embarking on more physical practices Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. The Cougars practiced inside due to the inclement weather in the Houston area.
Most of the early positional battles were decided this past week, said Dimel, so now the Cougars will concentrate on the game plan for Rice University-the Cougars inner-city rival and opponent in the Southwestern Bell Bayou Bucket this Saturday night at John O'Quinn Field at Robertson Stadium.
"Today we went inside," said Dimel, "and went through our whole game plan of about 80 percent tempo of polishing up the plays offensively (as well as) polishing up our defense against Rice. This was a typical Monday during the regular season."
Monday practice entailed the Cougars running through basic plays on the indoor turf, refining the timing of the offensive and defensive units. UH also spent a good portion of the workout detailing its special teams-a unit that presented plenty of problems for Dimel and his charges a season ago.
"All the battles are closed now, concerning the ones and twos go after the scrimmage," added Dimel. "Without any injuries we know who all the starters are going to be and know who all their backups should be."
The Cougars own a 20-7 record overall in the series versus Rice, including a 7-4 mark when UH is the home team. The last time these two teams met in Robertson Stadium, the Cougars christened the new playing surface, "The Quinn", with a 28-3 win over the Owls. A year ago at Rice Stadium, the Owls rallied for a 30-27 overtime win over the Cougars.
-UHCougars.com-
