The new big men have former UH stars salivating and the Big 12 starts in earnest for Dana Holgorsen and UH football today.
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August 2, 2023 | the daily #2
Scrimmage. Galen Robinson mentioned it on our show last night, but the most fascinating thing we saw from the Cougars was their newfound length. Newcomers JoJo Tugler, Ced Lath, Jacob McFarland, and veteran Ja’Vier Francis showed how length can change a team.
J’Wan Roberts missed the scrimmage with an ankle issue (“If we had a game tonight, he would have played,” Kelvin Sampson said matter-of-factly afterward). That gave the younger guys the spotlight, and they took advantage. The tone was set early, I believe, the first time down the floor. Jamal Shead tried to throw a pass to his left, but Tugler ended his passing lane. Shead has thrown that pass to Sasser in the corner hundreds of times, but Tugler swatted it out of bounds.
I spoke to several former players after the game, and almost to a man, they brought up Tugler. One said he’ll be a beast. Another told me he’ll be an even bigger handful come November after a few more months with strength coach Alan Bishop. In his postgame interview, LJ Cryer called him a ‘dawg’ and said he has a bright future.
The weird thing? Tugler played 20 of a possible 24 minutes in the scrimmage and only grabbed one board. Imagine what they’ll say when he puts up rebounding numbers. Despite what he showed last night, the expectations should be muted. It’s still August before his first Fall semester.
Fall Camp. Year five of the Dana Holgorsen era began today. Dana started it off in the lobby of the Indoor Practice Facility, as usual. He was a bit more candid this year than the last few.
The most interesting answer came after a question posed by a KPRC reporter:
That’s a helluva 1-2 punch: Zero limitations. Fixed the offensive line problems. Last year, heading into the bowl game, Dana started talking about “the expectations that were put upon us” by the media. He continued on that theme in the spring and early summer.
But now? Dana affixes these expectations: zero limitations and they’ve fixed the OL. It will be fascinating to see the offense that trots out on September 2nd.
Full coverage of Houston’s 2023 preseason football camp:
All of GoCoogs’ content on UH’s trip to Australia:
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