The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Blazers Spend Wednesday's Practice At Legion Field
11/11/2009 12:00:00β―AM | Football
Nov. 11, 2009
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- After being forced to practice indoors on Tuesday, the UAB football team worked out under partly sunny skies on Wednesday morning at Legion Field. The Blazers, who practiced for approximately two hours in helmets and shoulder pads, were forced from their on-campus facility Wednesday because of wet field conditions.
Despite not being able to practice on campus, UAB head coach Neil Callaway was happy to return to working outside and feels like the team is right where it needs to be.
"We really didn't have to do any more work today than what we planned originally," Callaway said. "We just put (Tuesday's practice) behind us. We got what we got out of it and we have moved on.
"I thought the first part of today's practice was good," Callaway said. "The 11-on-11 stuff we did, we are still learning. We are trying to get the Memphis stuff down and get familiar with that. We have a lot of work left to do. We just have to keep picking away at it."
The Blazers and Tigers will meet for the 12th time in series history on Saturday, with UAB holding a 7-4 advantage over the 11 previous contests. However, after winning seven straight from 2000-06, UAB has dropped the last two contests to Memphis in the series, including a 33-30 decision in Birmingham last season.
With the win, the Tigers held onto the "Battle for the Bones" trophy for a second straight year. Callaway knows that his players are excited for Saturday's rivalry and hopes his team will remain focused and learn from last year's mistakes.
"Hopefully we learned our lesson last year," Callaway said. "I thought we played Memphis hard and tough, but with all the penalties and mistakes we had in that game, we shot ourselves in the foot. Hopefully we learned from that."
One area where Callaway hopes to see some improvement is the defense, which has been riddled by injuries all season.
"We hope our defense has something to prove," Callaway said. "We have some (injury) issues in our defense that we have talked about. Hopefully we will come out and work hard and be able to do some things. They are a talented offense. They have three receivers who are as good as anyone in our league. They have a very good running back and their offensive line is big, so it's going to be tough."
Saturday's game will be televised live by CSS. The game will be carried on the Blazers ISP Sports Network and can be heard in the Birmingham area on flagship station WUHT-FM 107.7 with David Crane (play-by-play) and Jake Arians (color) on the call. The pregame show will begin 90 minutes prior to kickoff.
