The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB Football Practices Twice On Monday
8/17/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 17, 2009
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - After a day of rest following this past Saturday's scrimmage, the UAB football team returned to the practice fields for a pair of practices on Monday. The Blazers went an hour-and-a-half in full pads during the morning and got back on the field during the early evening for an hour session that was focused on special teams.
The later practice time was due to freshman academic sessions during the afternoon hours as UAB prepares to begin classes for the fall semester on Tuesday.
UAB head coach Neil Callaway was extremely pleased with the effort and enthusiasm the team showed during the morning practice. He pointed to the defense as one of the highlights of the day.
"Today was very good," said Callaway. "We had a good, spirited practice. Both sides competed hard. It was a good morning.
"One thing that was pleasing this morning was that we had some third down situations where the defense got a little more pressure on the quarterback, which was good to see."
Callaway was equally as happy with the evening practice, which was mostly spent working on special teams.
"We had a good practice this evening," said Callaway. "We worked a lot on the kicking game and did some situation stuff very briefly at the end. It was a very good and productive practice."
After going back and looking at film from last Saturday's scrimmage, Callaway said the defense performed better than he first thought. More specifically, the first-string defense earned praise for its ability to not allow a touchdown on the day. He also gave credit to the first-string offense for finding the endzone on five occasions during the two-hour scrimmage.
"One thing that was really positive, I thought, out of Saturday was the first defense did not give up a touchdown while we were in the drives," said Callaway. "It was pleasing to see that from the first defense.
"Offensively, the first offense scored five touchdowns over 75 plays, which is about the normal number of plays for a game. I thought that was pretty productive on both sides of the ball. Of course, it is ones against twos, but it was still a lot better than what we did in the spring, particularly defensively."
The Blazers are looking towards their season opener on Sept. 5 when they host Conference USA foe Rice. Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT at Legion Field.
