Rookies Report, Things to watch for, Replacing BS in 2011

Stephen Tsai writes about the first-year players reporting for training camp, which begins tomorrow.

(Veni) Manu and the other newcomers attended an orientation session yesterday on academics and the football-related schedule, met with academic counselors and the life-skills coordinator, and toured the campus.

UH head coach Greg McMackin said many of the freshmen took advantage of the "bridge" term implemented this summer. The six-week session offers two three-credit classes that run through the start of training camp. The session enabled newscomers to get acclimated to college life without the pressure of football-related demands.

Unfortunately, Tsai also reports that Aaron Brown will miss at least the first week of training camp because of a high ankle sprain.

"Luckily, it's not broken," said Brown, who was on crutches yesterday.

He said he suffered the injury when he landed awkwardly doing plyometrics, exercises that involve jumping onto boxes.

Dave Reardon has a rundown of things to watch for if you happen to be at UH during fall practices. An excerpt:

Kicker competition: Scott Enos is a pit bull, so you know he won't give up his place-kicking job without a fight. But they brought in a ringer: Tyler Haddon, who was rated the top high school kicker in California last year and 10th in the nation.

Anything is possible when thunder-legged Alex Dunnachie punts; but way fewer shanks last spring, and he's learned to make the ball die in front of the goal line.

And Ferd Lewis writes about the difficulty in replacing the Donks on the 2011 schedule.

"In football scheduling terms it (the 2011 season) is practically tomorrow," said UH associate athletic director Carl Clapp, who oversees scheduling for the Warriors.
"That's one of the challenges of conference expansion and we have to deal with it," said UH athletic director Jim Donovan. "We feel like it is better than 50/50 we'll have something."