8 - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 23, 1993
Cougars attempt new approach
Helton stresses discipline over flashy style of Jenkins' regime
By RYAN HERRINGTON fense. the run-and-shoot. However, Helton's hands have
DAILY FOOTBALL WRfER Jenkins was forced to resign amidst the contro- been tied this season in terms of personnel.
While the city of Houston ordinarily feels like a versy, working out a settlement with the university in "What we're trying to do right now is give our
sauna in the summer time, the heat was even more which he was paid the remainder of his salary. seniors a chance to win football games," Helton said.
intense this past year, primarily because of the spot- Last spring's troubles were nothing new for the "If I wasn't concerned about the seniors, I'd simply
light focused on the Cougar football program. Houston football program, which has come under the get rid of the four-wideout offense and go get in the
With accusations of NCAA improprieties, the NCAA microscope on conventional offense."
resignation of head coach John Jenkins and an overall other occasions. The Helton's squad has run into numerous difficulties
state of confusion, the Houston squad that steps on the Cougars wereplacedon on the field thus far. In their first two games, the
field Saturday in Ann Arbor will have gone through a probation as recently as Cougars have been outscored by a 87-31 margin,
great deal of turmoil since its 61-7 whitewashing 1987 for rules viola- losing to USC and Tulsa. Regardless of the rough
against Michigan a year ago. tions. start, Helton insists on taking on the challenge at
"I think we're all, right now, fighting and scratch- Added to this the Houston head on.
ing to do the right things," said first-year coach Kim already tamishedimage "I think we've got all the excuses you want," said
Helton yesterday in his weekly press conference. "I'm of the Southwest Con- Helton about his early season trouble. "I think our
proud of our football kids." ference as a whole, football program was bottomed out, our facility was
The Cougars came under fire last spring when two Houston athletic direc- certainly in need of being redone. Our attitude, our
assistants accused then-head coach Jenkins of violat- tor Bill McGillis knew discipline, our recruiting, not being in spring prac-
ing NCAA rules. that he would have to tice, they're all there.
One of the assistants - Steve Staggs - alleged bring in a no nonsense "I think our situation is we don't want to grow
that Jenkins had made an improper payment to a leader to counter the into being an excuse maker. We'll take our licks and
recruit, along with violating limits on practice time backlog of negative if we get ourselves squared away and play as well as
during spring workouts. Staggs had been fired by publicity. Hlton we can we'll have a chance to win some football
Jenkins just weeks before he went public with his Enter Helton. games."
allegations. A long-time assistant in both college and the NFL, While somewhat inexperienced, the Cougars are
Aside from rules violations, Staggs also reported Helton was brought in on May 21 to shape up a Cougar not without talent. Middle linebacker Ryan McCoy
that Jenkins had spliced footage of topless women into program in need of facelift. heads the list of standouts.
videotapes of his team's practices. "I have very narrow boundaries regarding disci- The Butkus Award nominee is first on the team in
While continually denying the rules violations, pline," Helton said. "I think the football team has tackles with 27.
Jenkins later admitted that he had altered the videotape accepted the rules and regulations. Obviously, with However, inconsistencies have been the bugaboo
as an "innocent attention-getter." that (new discipline) comes great expectations of of the Cougars. Helton is trying his best to rub away
The videotape certainly grabbed the attention of victories. With sacrifice they're looking at being a the distractions of the past and present a new outlook
school administrators, who decided that the incident winning football program." at Houston.
was the last straw. Jenkins' image during his three To say that Helton's style of coaching is different 'We're not looking where we're at," Helton said.
years at Houston had been less than angelic, as he than Jenkins is an understatement. A self-proclaimed 'We'relooking wherewewanttobeandwherewe're
alienated many other coaches by running up the score disciple of Howard Schnellenberger, Helton prefers a headed and some of these young men are going to
against lesser opponents with his run-and-shoot of- conventional two-back passing offense to the flash of have some great experiences in the future."
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'Houston linebacker Ryan McCoy is one of the Cougars best players on the defensive
side of the ball. The Butkus Award candidate leads the team in tackles with 27.
Midwestern Invitational chance
'fore' Blue golfers to improve
By JOSH KARP
FOR THE DAILY
In the second tournament of the fall
season, Michigan men's golf coach Jim
Carras will bring a fairly young and
inexperienced squad to the Midwestern
Invitational in DeKalb, Ill., which be-
gins tomorrow.
The 12-team field, which includes
Big Ten foes Iowa, Wisconsin and
Michigan State, will play on a wide-
open course thatmeasuresroughly7,000
yards. With a history of encountering
bad weather in early spring tournaments,
Carras added two more matches to the
fall slate.
After tying for 11th place out of 24
teams at last week'sFalcon Invitational,
the golfers will visit the Northern Illi-
nois course for the first time in five
years.
Carrasalso made two roster changes
for this week. Juniors Chris Brockway
andBillLyle, andfreshman KyleDobbs
return to the lineup. SeniorCarl Condon
and junior Mike Hill replace team co-
captain Bob Henighan and freshman
Brent Idalski.
"Bob and Brent, who played at the
Falcon Invitational in Colorado Springs,
Ididn'tfeel played well enough to make
this trip." Carras said. "The first two or
three tournaments, we're attempting to
try new kids, kids that we think can be
competitive and be contributors to the
program.
"And the only way we're going to
find out is to put them in the line of fire
and see how they respond."
Carras said he felt both Henighan
and Idalski would be back in the lineup
in due time.
"Bob's a proven player going
through some rough times right now,
butthatwon'tlast," Carras stated. "And
Brent Idalski is an exceptional fresh-
man golfer. I think all of this kind of
overwhelmed Brent to some extent."
Idalski wasn't the only freshman
playeron theroster, though. KyleDobbs,
a freshman from Saline, paced the team
with a 226 last week and said he feels
that the squad can be very competitive.
"I've got the feeling we can always
battle out for the first spot no matter
what," Dobbs said "We can just take
any title, I feel. We've got a strong
enough team for that."
Carras on the other hand, did not
sound as optimistic. "If we finish in the
top five, I would suggest that that's a
pretty good finish for an early tourna-
ment," he said.
Who does Carras feel will putt it out
for the top spot?
"If you ask me to pick a winner out
of all this, I would suggest maybe Wis-
consin or possibly Kentucky are the
strongest two teams in the field."
One way or another the Wolverine
golf squad will have to show up this
weekend.
"I think we're going to have a great
team," Dobbs said. "We're going to
kick butt!"
0
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