Month: September 2017

When comparing the UTEP Defense going up against the Top 5 ranked OU Offense here are some numbers that should give us some hope. The Miners’ defense allowed 4.7 yards per rushing attempt to OU, BUT, Rice allowed Stanford 8 yards a carry. Gets even better when we look at pass defense. UTEP gave up 13.8 yards per catch, BUT Rice gave up 17.6 yards a catch to Stanford. OU averaged 9.1 yards per play and Stanford averaged 9.

Offensively, UTEP …averaged 3.8 yards a play and Rice averaged 3.9.

When Sean Kugler became the Head Coach of the Miners he stated that he wanted to make the UTEP football over in the image of the Rice program.  That sounded ok at the time because in 2012 Rice won 7 games and in the next two seasons they won 10 and 8 more.  Plus, they are smart.  The Stanford of Texas some might say.  But, the last two years, Rice has returned to a place more familiar to the Rice program, the basement and ground level of the conference.  Meanwhile, the Miners are going to class and getting good grades.  Nobody is going to mistake our Harvard on the Border with Rice academically, but our guys would compete.  Last year, the Miners won more football games, too.  So Saturday’s game is a chance to see who does it better,  the Miners, imitating the Owls or the originals.  As of right now, the experts think it is just about a coin flip.  Which is the better doormat?  Sorry, this is just the second game of the season and my cynicism sometimes comes out.

What can we expect on Saturday at the Sun Bowl?  It is the Home Opener for the Miners and with more than a century of horrid football, the Miners fans don’t let an opening day of the season drubbing keep them from coming out for a nice evening get together.  That one doesn’t count we say.  We need the money so we prostitute ourselves out to the sick bastard that likes to beat his hookers up.  We know it, but even hooers need to pay the rent.  The bruises heal, and he didn’t break any bones this time.  So, now we are ready to fight that bitch on our corner.  It isn’t going to be pretty, and it isn’t really going to be a fight.  Two hags, biting with toothless mouths and scratching with fingernails bitten to the quick.  Mostly they will pull each other’s hair and clinch.  Winner and loser will be hard to tell at the end because it really wasn’t much of a fight, but those keeping score will give us a declared winner and loser.  Fight fans will not be impressed.  For those out there who hate the thought of two old broads fighting on the street, if it makes you feel better, no one will probably even land a punch.  Both hate throwing punches because they are the ones that usually get the shit knocked out of them as soon as they come out of the fetal position.  So, this will be like two sumo wrestlers trying to make each other be the inside person while spooning.

Both teams despise the forward pass.  Woody Hayes and Vince Lombardi butting heads.  If you like excitement, you might be better off lying on the couch watching women’s golf.  They whisper so as not to wake you from your nap.  Oddly enough, the Owls hate the pass so much they don’t even lie about it.  The Miners do.  But, the Miners actually have a quarterback that has the ability to pass.  So, it will be the Rice Owls running with no other thought at all against the Miners running, which when it fails as it usually does forcing the use of the hated passer.  That my friends is the wild card factor in this game.  They don’t pass and can’t.  We don’t pass but can.  The forward pass wins the game.  Almost accidently.  In spite of the head coach’s wishes it will be a pass that wins the game and not the pushing and shoving.  One of the sumo wrestlers is going to stop pushing and shoving long enough to throw a punch and it will be the difference.

Note to UTEP marketing.  Instead of foam fingered number ones, foam pillows for the snooze might be nice.  Never mind, the soccer fans doing the wave and playing with the beach balls will make it hard to do more that cat nap during the Miners’ offensive possessions.

After two games, Sean will be able to say his team has won as many as he has lost this year and back on track for a bowl eligible season.  Nothing blooms much in the desert around El Paso at anytime during the year, but in September, Miners Orange Hope, Optimism, and Renewal blossoms come out, signaling survival of another El Paso summer and another lottery ticket for a chance to win the football lottery.  Yep, like getting hit by lightning twice on your birthday inside Carlsbad Caverns.  We always hope that somehow, someway we can at least win back the price of our ticket.

I think I am just about ready for the first Home game, against a fellow miserable C-USA member.  Here we go again.  Go Miners!

Talk about it here;http://kyyotesden.com/den/index.php?board=1.0

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.

Join us in the Den and talk about this and all things Miners here;

http://kyyotesden.com/den/index.php?topic=72.0