Dana Holgorsen met with the media at the Indoor Practice Facility today. He seems to be more confident and upbeat this preseason, and he and his players have repeatedly said that everything is on track.
“We haven’t had any bad days,” Holgorsen said. He attributes that to the maturity of his team.
Each season he’s been at Houston, Dana has said he wished he had another week or two before the first game, but that hasn’t happened publicly in 2022.
There are four practices left in Fall Camp before the team ‘breaks’ and school begins on August 22. Players will have the day off next Monday and then goes into a mock game week on Tuesday. As close as possible, the team will mimic every part of game week preparation up to the point of getting on the bus to go to San Antonio.
For the last few years, the team has held a mock game the Saturday night before the first game, and I expect that to happen on August 27th. The next day the team will begin their UTSA game week.
Holgorsen said the staff still has a lot of decisions to make. There are still some starting spots up for grabs, lots of backup roles have not been decided, and they have to decide which 70 guys get on the bus to go to UTSA.
“This is kind of push-through and separate yourself time,” Holgorsen said. “This is kind of the time when people separate themselves, and that hasn’t ended yet.
“Guys that we didn’t know we could count on are starting to come through.”
Holgorsen said that, behind running back Ta’Zhawn Henry, one of the guys to watch for is Stacey Snead.
“Stacy Snead has looked really good,” Dana said. It’s time for him to play. He’s been here two years.”
To date, Snead has not even dressed out for a game, but it appears that will change in San Antonio. Dana also likes Brandon Campbell and called him really solid.
Holgorsen seems thrilled with the talent he has at wide receiver. He pointed out a couple of transfers today.
“Sam (Brown) has looked really good in (the) red zone,” Dana said. “I’m still trying to figure out what to do with Manjack.”
“They’re both pretty versatile. Sam has height and strength and Manjack can play all 4 (wide receiver) positions, if he wants to.”
Asked about replacing the two cornerbacks that left the program for the NFL, Dana says the depth is there but the current players need to keep gaining experience.
“I think we can replace them. Think we recruited pretty well. Just gotta keep logging reps over next 4 practices.”
He said that Art Green has been great ‘to the boundary’ and that Jalen Emery is getting the reps ‘to the field’ that would be going to Alex Hogan, who is out with a minor hamstring injury.
“We got some guys to choose from, we just gotta rep em.”
Dana also discussed kick return, saying he could pair Dell with either freshman receiver Matthew Golden, Peyton Sawyer, or DB Jayce Rogers. Holgorsen confirmed that he prefers not to use Henry in the return game, due to his workload in the offense.
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