Anxiety continues to build in the hearts of UH football fans with each day that goes by without an official quarterback announcement, but head coach Art Briles isn’t letting out any indication of who will be the man of the hour.
"I fully anticipate both of them playing," Briles said of redshirt freshman Case Keenum and sophomore Blake Joseph.
Keenum is looking forward to contributing to the team in any way he can.
"I’m just going to try to produce when it’s time, whether it’s the first snap or another time," he said. "It’s one of those things where we don’t know how each other are going to run the offense, but I’m looking forward to it."
The Cougars are doing everything they can to make sure that Saturday’s game against Oregon will be successful, including playing through the entirety of Wednesday’s practice with simulated crowd noise blaring through the Athletics/Alumni Center’s speakers.
"We’ve had (the noise) on and off for the last couple weeks. It was pretty effective today. We’ll maybe hit it a little bit tomorrow and for sure Friday," Briles said.
Joseph said the experience the extra noise provides will be good for the team.
If Oregon’s attendance numbers from last season’s home opener are any indication, the Cougars could be up against a crowd of 58,450 screaming Duck fans.
"The intensity of it is up a little bit as we get closer to game day, but we’re still basically doing the same thing we’ve been doing," Briles said. "We have a system of our drills that we have faith in and believe in." Keenum said that the Cougars are learning to play together more as a team as opposed to individual units of the same team.
"Mostly we work on the team and try to bring it all together," Keenum said. "It’s the only way you can succeed as a team."
Briles said the main concern of each player is to help the team win.
"Each position has a job it has to do to help our team win, so all each individual does is take care of their position," he said.