University of Houston Athletics
Both Sides of the Ball Impressive in Cougars Scrimmage
4/6/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 6, 2002
With the sun staying behind the clouds all morning, the Houston Cougars completed their third scrimmage of the spring at Robertson Stadium, as both the offense and defense could stake a claim to a productive day.
UH head coach Dana Dimel ran his team through a two-hour scrimmage to wrap up the third week of the annual spring practice, and the third-year coach saw some positive aspects to the team's performance.
"It was more consistent today on both sides of the football," said Dimel. "As a coach you obviously do not want one side to dominate the other too much, so we had some good consistency. The defense improved on stopping the run, which was one of the things we wanted to improve upon from last year.
"They are not really where we want them to be yet, but we showed some improvement. We are now looking forward to going into this next week, where we can use (the improvement) as a building block. That is the step we want to take right now."
Junior quarterback Nick Eddy-who was a part-time starter a year ago-led the Cougars on all but one of their four offensive scoring drives. Eddy led all passers on the day, throwing for 195 yards and one touchdown on 16-of-28 attempts. He did suffer two interceptions, both of which were returned for touchdowns by senior Hanik Milligan and redshirt freshman Carlos Jones, respectively.
Speaking of Jones, the former Clear Lake High School standout turned in an outstanding performance in his bid to crack the starting lineup in 2002. Besides his aforementioned interception, Jones also registered a fumble recovery and a sack to pace the Cougar defense.
Jack-of-all-trades, junior Tim Feathers, was another standout for the UH offense, rushing for a team-high 108 yards on just eight carries, while adding an additional 25 yards on two receptions. Feathers is projected as the Cougars staring fullback after switching from tight end this spring. Feathers originally began his Houston career as a backup linebacker.
The senior rushing tandem of Joffrey Reynolds and Chris Robertson combined for 76 yards and two touchdowns, while redshirt freshman quarterback Barrick Nealy delighted the Cougar faithful with a 29-yard scramble for the other Houston score, however, Nealy struggled throwing, completing only one-of-seven passes for nine yards.
Senior backup quarterback Torrence Botts was perfect during the scrimmage, completing all six of his passes for 52 yards.
Illustrating why they again have one of the top receiving units in the nation, 12 different Cougar receivers got their hands on the ball, led by senior Brian Robinson with three catches for 62 yards and one score. Big-play receiver, junior Brandon Middleton, had two receptions for 56 yards, while senior KeyKowa Bell led all wideouts with four receptions and sophomores Mark Hopkins (2-24) and Choni Francis (2-18) both had at least one catch.
Sophomore Dustin Bell looked as though he is the heir apparent for the kicking job vacated by the departure of Jeff Patterson. Bell connected on three-of-four fields with his only miss coming from 50 yards out.
he Cougars will practice three more times in the upcoming week before concluding the spring with the annual Red-White Game on Saturday, April 13. Kickoff is slated for 1 p.m. at Robertson Stadium.
-UHCougars.com-
