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Rice University Athletics
Football: Practice Report #11
8/29/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 29, 2005
Houston - The other 11 Conference USA football teams open their seasons this weekend, but that hasn't stopped Rice from treating this as a game week.
Coach Ken Hatfield will ease the Owls into their game-week routine despite not playing until Sept. 10. That's the day that the Owls become the 12th C-USA squad to play when they meet UCLA in the Rose Bowl. The Bruins, in fact, get a head start with their opener at San Diego State Saturday night.
After a controlled scrimmage on Wednesday, Hatfield said the back half of the week would be similar to a game week. "We'll go with what we do on Thursday, up to the pregame warmup on Saturday night,"' he said following Monday's workout in Rice Stadium.
The Saturday night scrimmage in the Stadium will be more in tune with normal game situations, including a coin toss, timeouts, play clocks and officials.
On Monday, Hatfield welcomed two projected offensive starters back to full duty: sophomore quarterback Joel Armstrong (Longview/High) had missed some work with a groin injury, and junior fullback Andrew Cates (Atlanta, Ga./Marist) had been held out the past 10 days after suffering a concussion.
An afternoon thunderstorm forced the staff to move the practice onto the Stadium's AstroTurf surface.
