The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Football Team Ready To Go Against Southern Miss
9/3/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 3, 2003
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.----- The UAB football team completed its final practice here Wednesday in preparations for Thursday night's nationally-televised contest against Conference USA rival Southern Miss. The Blazers practiced for a little over an hour without pads on the UAB practice field.
"It went very good today," UAB head coach Watson Brown said. "Both teams have had a short week. That's what we were dealt and we are glad to be doing this. We are going to play on national television, so we are ready to go."
The team worked on the final parts of the game-plan coaches have installed for Southern Miss. Also mixed in throughout the afternoon were coach and player interviews with the ESPN game crew.
On Thursday, both the Blazers and Golden Eagles will compete against each other after only four days rest since their previous games. Southern Miss lost to Cal, 34-2, on Saturday, while UAB recorded a last-minute, 24-19, victory against Big XII opponent Baylor on the road in Waco, Texas.
The Blazers have never defeated the Golden Eagles in three contests between the two schools. In those three meetings, the point differential has been a total of 13 points. In the first meeting between the two schools on Nov. 11, 2000, Southern Miss defeated UAB 33-30 in overtime at Legion Field. The Blazers also lost 3-0 on Sept. 29, 2001 and 20-13 last season in Birmingham.
"I don't want to think of this game as the biggest game of the year and I don't want our players to think that way. It is a very important game because it's our first conference game and it's against one of our bigger rivals in Southern Miss, but we want our players to treat this game just like Baylor last week and Troy State next week."
UAB (1-0) and Southern Miss (0-1) will face off Sept. 4, (6 p.m. CT) in front of a nationally-televised audience broadcast on ESPN2 from Legion Field. The announcers for Thursday's game will be Mike Tirico, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and Dr. Jerry Punch.
