University of Houston Athletics
Dana Dimel Chat Wrap
2/4/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
Feb. 7, 2002
Dana Dimel: Hello, everyone. Thanks for dropping by.
We are really pleased with our Class of 2002, with the defensive line being the strength of the class and just the pure athletes from the Greater Houston area.
Paul New Orleans: Last year's recruiting class was one of the best ever and the best in CUSA, however 20 out of 22 were red shirted. Will that be done with this year's class as well?
Dana Dimel: This year's class has eight junior college players, and we are trying to bring things to a head, so we will not redshirt as many as we did last year. Brandon(Houston): What do you feel will be your strong areas this coming season, and where do you feel you will be weak at?
Dana Dimel: The strength of the team will be the defensive line, wide receivers and running backs. The question marks right now are finding a two-deep at the o-line and solidify the linebacking spot and having a variety of players to choose from. Bill (Houston): Coach,
Congrats on another solid recruiting class, considering the season we had a year ago. do you feel you got the guys you wanted on the O and D Lines?Dana Dimel: The true measure of a recruiting class is getting the players you wanted. Especially on the defensive line, we were able to go out and get some great players and beat some top programs in the process.
Mohammed (Houston): I hope you an awesome 2002-03 season. Coach I would like to ask you about next years QB situation. Who is starting next year?
Dana Dimel: Great question. Nick Eddy has the early advantage, but will be pushed heavily by Barrick Nealy, Blade Bassler and Torrence Botts. Ahmed (Houston): As you know coach, UH's defense was one of the worst in the nation. Critics have called you an offensive minded coach. What have you done in the offseason to improve the defense?
Dana Dimel: Some of our redshirt players will help us emmensely on the defense, as well as the increased emphasis on improving the toughness of the defensive players that are returning through our offseason conditioning. john (dallas): The Oklahoma Sooners coaching staff and players attribute much of their sucess to their strength coach and off season workouts.
I've attended 14 of the last 22 games. For the last 2 seasons, both O-Line & D-Line lack strength & stamina and LB's don't have the strength to "drive" thru and finish tackles.(except Rogers) Who is our strength coach? What's he doing to improve the situation and reduce bodyfat percentage. Are you using the off season program to instill the discipline & pride to succeed next season?Dana Dimel: Much of a team's success comes from the offseason program. The University of Houston program suffered great last season when we lost our strength coach for three months out of prime offseason workout period, and thus the conditioning of last season's club was not as good as my first year's club. This year through the first four weeks of our offseason this football team has made great strides, and I feel very confident that we will take the field with a much tougher, well-conditioned team.
Courtland: Dear Coach Dimel I would llke to start off by letting you know that our family is behind UH Football no matter what. You and your coaching staff are doing a fine job of coaching.
I do have a question. How do you feel last years team came together as a team. By that I mean do you think they could have spent more time together, outside of practice and meetings? Just so they could have become closer. Maybe that's a goofy thought. But a team, any team has to gel to win. I also realize that itt is not the coaching staffs responsibilty to watch over this sort of thing.
Best of luck to you, your staff, and of course those fighting UH Cougars. The team to beat in 2002.Dana Dimel: Unity is one of your top priorities in developing your football team. Cultivating unity is a never-ending task. The unity on last year's football program was a direct reflection of our success rate. We are working each and every day to improve our unity, and it is improving by eliminating selfish players and developing more team-oriented players.
Rob (Austin): I know that you feel that this years class ranks atop CUSA. Where do you think our class ranks nationally?
Dana Dimel: My thoughts come from recruiting services and where they have us ranked. The services that we've seen so far has us ranked number one in the conference and real close to the same place we were last year nationally. joe: Coach who do you project as starters on Both lines heading into spring?
Dana Dimel: First of all, the spring two-deep might be different once we enter fall camp. Heading into spring, Williams at RT, Wheeler at RG, James at C, Hadnot at LG and Green/Douglass at LT. Defensively, DEs are Jackson and Lee and DTs are Goss and a three-way battle between Hill, McGowan and Mayhew. Lamar (Davie, FL): Coach Dimel, what players are projected at RB? Also, do you think that we might have 1,000 yd. rusher in the group? (That position always interests me)
Dana Dimel: Last year was the first year that I called plays and we did not have a 1,000-yard rusher. I'm not sure we will this year because the three backs.Evans, Robertson, Reynolds.all have a chance to play quite a bit. Coach Lubick(Ft. Collins): Any chance playing Mountain West teams like Colorado State or Wyoming?
Dana Dimel: No. In our non-conference schedule we want to play as many Big 12 school's in order to help us in recruiting. UH_student: who are some of the guys that signed yesterday or are about to sign that we should look for to make an impact on this coming season?
Dana Dimel: Huffman, Adelekan, Clark, Mattox, Reid, Gaston, Pope, Battle, Kirkpatrick and Bentley. LarryHouston: Enjoyed the recruiting party yesterday at school. Congrats on the class. My question is please describe the offense we will be running this spring/fall.
Dana Dimel: Not many changes in the offensive scheme this spring/fall. We received a lot of compliments from other coaches about the offense we ran. All of our quarterbacks are suited to run this offense. Stephen Roberts: Great job coach! I couldn't be more pleased with the recruiting class! It's obvious the entire staff worked their tails off.
Dana Dimel: The strong late finish was due to a very strong work ethic from our assistant coaches, where our coaches kept sawing wood until chopped the trees down. Topeka Ks: When is the new schedule coming out for the football season? How do you think Matt Mattox will fit in with your team? Thank You
Dana Dimel: Very shortly on the schedule. Matt has had a tremendous offseason so far and is providing leadership on this team already. If he continues to do so, there is no doubt he will help our team next season. SlehCoog (Houston): How far away are we from dominating CUSA?
Dana Dimel: For us to be on the top of Conference USA in recruiting only bodes well for the future as these classes start to pyramid our talent base will provide us the opportunity to compete at the upper level. Dean Lopez (Houston): Congratulations on a fine recruiting class. Can you share with us what you believe convinced these great recruits that UH was where they wanted to play, especially considering our record last year?
Dana Dimel: Our 2001 Signing Class was a definite stepping stone for the future of this program. Those players made the choices to come to UH were the ambassadors to the players that chose to come to UH in 2002. Dana Dimel: I appreciate the interest on this board and all of these questions. We are excited about the start of spring ball on March 20. We feel like we've turned the corner and are doing so each and every day to a higher degree, and very much anticipating a much-improved season in 2002. Moderator: (12:34 PM ET ) Thanks to everyone for submitting some great questions. We anticipate having Coach Dimel on again after the spring game on April 13. Please log back on UHcougars.com next week for an online chat with softball head coach Kyla Holas, who has started the year 7-0 with her second-year ball club.
