Published: September 30, 2008 12:24 am         

Colts prepare to head to Houston to battle Texans in key AFC South matchup

Indianapolis — Getting back to work.

After getting in two days of practice and allowing his team to enjoy a three-day weekend to rest up, Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy is ready to hit the ground running this week.

Indianapolis will come off its bye week and begin preparations for Sunday’s road game with the Houston Texans. The Colts will take a 1-2 record into the matchup against their AFC South rivals (1 p.m., Reliant Stadium). Houston will bring a 0-3 record into the game after losses to Pittsburgh (38-17), Tennessee (31-12) and Jacksonville (30-27 in overtime).

During his brief time off, Dungy took advantage of the opportunity to be a fan as he watched his son Eric make his first start at safety for Plant High School in suburban Tampa on Friday. He also was able to catch up on all of Sunday’s NFL action, keeping a particularly close watch on the Tennessee Titans’ 30-17 win over the Minnesota Vikings.

“What you see is the teams that are really playing sharp and not beating themselves and minimizing their mistakes, not turning the ball over. That’s who’s winning,” the Colts’ coach said Monday. ”I watched Tennessee. They’ve been as impressive as anybody I’ve seen all year. They’re not turning the ball over. They’re playing really hard on defense, making it tough on the other teams to score.

“Consequently, they’re 4-0 [2-0 in the division]. So that’s what we want to gear into and see if we can get back to playing that way.”

Indianapolis, which has won five straight division crowns, is not used to looking up in the standings at other teams. But that’s the situation the Colts find themselves in right now.

“I’m not worried [about getting off to a 1-2 start and falling behind in the AFC South race] so much as I am about us. We certainly don’t want to go to 1-3. We don’t want to have two division losses back-to-back and get behind the eight-ball that way. We’ve just got to start playing better,” Dungy said.

“If we get ourselves playing, you can’t control how anybody else is. As I said, Tennessee’s playing great right now. But our concern is more of getting ourselves playing great. Then we’ll be in good shape. We’ve got to start playing better and then all of that [moving up the standings] will take care of itself, I think.”

Those are the goals for this week: Practice well and play hard in Houston.

“I think we just need to practice real well and come out and have a good game. We haven’t played a sharp, 60-minute game yet this year. I think we’re going to need that to go down and win [against the Texans],” Dungy said.

“I think going on the road, our players will realize that we won’t have the home advantage so we have to go prepared to play a tough game and win a tough game on the road.”

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• Injury list — The Colts won’t know until later this week how many of their injured players will be able to suit up for the Houston game.

Rookie offensive guard Mike Pollak (knee) and offensive tackle Tony Ugoh (groin) practiced Monday. The availability of offensive guard Daniel Federkeil (ribs), who did not take part in Monday’s workout, is unsettled for now. Rookie tight end Jacob Tamme (ankle), meanwhile, might be able to play.

“Hard to say [on who will able to practice this week]. I still haven’t really talked to [assistant athletic trainer] Dave Hammer yet. We’ll practice [Monday] and kind of get a read on it [Monday night], like we always do,” the Colts’ coach said.

“We hope that Mike [Pollak] gets back and really sees how he plays, how he practices, how comfortable he is, where he is physically [this week]. He hasn’t played in while. I think it’s more of a wait-and-see.”