Everyone, knew there was no chance of UTEP winning the game. Even Head Coach Kugler seemed resigned to it. But, he said they would "compete". Not trying to be a smartass, but I could have put a team of sixth graders on the field that would have tried. Part of the trouble with Kugler's offense is that it has no explosiveness. It isn't designed to be explosive. It is meant to be boring. No surprises, just run the damned ball up the middle. Three or four yards a run. Run the clock out. It is why I quit going to games. It is boring, has just about no possible way to come back from a deficit, and not good enough at it to win. Winning is always good, even when you can take a nap during the game and wake up to a winning score, but Kugler's offense is finally the boring, watching paint dry offense that the wave starting and loving soccer fans have waited for. You don't have to actually watch the plays as they are all alike. You can concentrate on waiting and watching for the wave to get to you so that you can stand up and sit down again. Some fun, a UTEP football game. Pay no attention to the score, either.
Well, that's how I felt before the OU game. I wanted to see if there was anything different in this game. Since insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, I was looking to see if it would be crazy to hope for better things from the football team. There was a slight hope that I might see Kugler attempt to stretch the field. Maybe he did. A little. But, they were playing OU. And they were quickly down by points piling up on them, and rushing the football with the power football Kugler game was hitting a brick wall. One thing I learned is that our biggest asset, what Kugler has focused on, our offensive line was not able to handle the OU defensive line. If anyone is surprised by this, well...they probably don't know Bo, or much of anything else about football. Maybe, just maybe, the one thing I did see is the line was able to give Metz a little time. Perhaps it is better for me to say that Metz wasn't running for his life every time he dropped back to pass. Against OU. The thing is, against C-USA teams, Kugler may just revert to his running the ball every play. Expect different and you may be in the market for a new straightjacket.
But, the key to UTEP football success is the defense. Can it stop anyone. Well, 56 points is a definite "Maybe". Anyone want to bet on how many other teams have 50+ points dropped on them by OU this season? Anyone want to bet that none of the other teams OU plays this season have to worry about that? So, we have to ask ourselves about the defense and improvement or lack thereof with the understanding that looking at the points given up is a bad way to start. We have to ask questions about pressure and not how many sacks the defense got. We have to look at how many passes were short passes that became long touchdowns. We have to look at things like were we embarrassed the same way as we always are when we play any decent team. We have to look at how many runs for three yards that turned into sixty yard touchdown runs.
Here's a glimpse at what it is like to be a UTEP football fan. Although the score was 56 to 7 this was a pretty good game. Let that sink in for a minute. That is UTEP football. Complete domination, BUT NOT COMPLETE HUMILIATION! Ninety percent of the people out there would find a 49 point loss to be pretty humiliating, but a UTEP fan has seen so many of those that we don't look at scores anymore. We look at we weren't made to be the Washington Capitals. The team didn't look like they made the trip in a clown car. We just got beat. Badly, sure. But, it was OU AND the team didn't just look embarrassing. That's how we roll at UTEP. We see positives in 49 point drubbings.
That's what I learned from Saturday's loss. It wasn't a knee slapper. The OU fans left the stadium smiling, but they weren't yucking it up. And that, my friends, is improvement. It is hard to say just how much improvement not being a joke is. It is hard to put numbers on it. It is more like it means that there is a candle's light somewhere out in the darkness of the wilderness. It is distant and doesn't illuminate a path or anything like that. No, it is a pinprick of light somewhere out there in the darkness, glimmering. It is a glimmer of hope for us to look to. Or it could be a firefly. We may know which after getting a chance to try on another team on our level of horribleness, the Rice Owls next time. Should be a real cat fight! Lots of noise, sounds of fury, paws flying, and no harm done. Like watching a couple of sixth grade girls fighting. Paraphrasing Kugler, our girl will be kickin', scratchin, and hair pullin' as hard as that girl from Rice. I am betting on our girl. She ends up on top when the teacher comes to separate them and time runs out. Miners 31 to the Owl's 28 when time runs out.
