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It Is A Game of Inches. I Hope.

The Miners are 0-5 to start the season. Coach Kugler was given the resign boot. He and his coaches seemed to believe that the team was a few missed plays from winning some of those games. In order to even getting your head around that you have to understand that the whole philosophy of this team is control. Control the other team by control of the clock. Keep scores low. So a pass is not designed to keep defenses off balance. It isn’t used to get large chunks of yardage. It is another version of a three yard run, just from a different position. The offense is based on three yards and taking time off of the clock. A missed pass is not the loss of the yards it would have gained, it is the end of a drive. And drives that stall are deadly in this philosophy. It is a loss of control. So, in the minds of the coaches, they see a missed pass not as a missed pass, but as a drive lost and control lost. Momentum lost.

If they are right, and things are going to remain in place as they are, the key will be in the ability to keep the drives going. A dropped pass either has to be caught, or the damage of a dropped pass has to be mitigated. Since the coach has no control over the hands that are supposed to catch the ball, that leaves mitigating the damage. Throwing a longer pass doesn’t help. If it isn’t caught it is just the same as not being caught on the short pass. The drive dies. The same ball caught doesn’t really help that much in the control aspect of the game, so the extra yards are just part of the drive. Also, a long pass means the run blocking line has to pass block for longer to protect their quarterback. So, how will CMP mitigate the weight of the pass in this control the ball offense. If the pass is used on third down and fails, the drive is lost. If the same four yard pass fails on first down, second down only needs eight yards to be back on track. Same with second down. If the four yard pass is complete on first down, you can still get your three yards per carry on the next two downs and keep a drive alive. So, run on first and second down every time, and third down is almost always a do or die pass. A pass on first or second down completed works fine and if it isn’t completed it doesn’t mean the drive is dead. That is simple and the only thing changed is when the four yard pass is tried. The other thing CMP could do is give the quarter back options. If the pass is designed to go to one receiver to get that four yards to keep the drive going the chance of a defender being able to caused a “dropped” pass is greater than if the quarterback has another receiver to go to if the first option is covered. Keeping in mind that all we want is to keep the drive going, and yards are not what we are worried about, so the pass still doesn’t need to go deep down field. That pass takes too long for a run blocking line. So, look for CMP to find ways using quick hitting short passes. Long throws to the sidelines behind the line of scrimmage take too long and have too many negatives possible. I think we will see more tight ends taking passes over the middle, maybe passes to a running back sneaking out of the backfield.

Having said all of that, Mike Price loves the energy and excitement of the “Big Play”. It is the psychological weapon that puts defenses on their heels and invigorates his team both on offense and on defense. I would expect him to take at least two shots long each half, at least.

So, if the coaches were right and the team was just a few plays here and there from a much different start to the season, it won’t take much to make a big difference. Think of it this way, do you actually think the football players were better at NMSU or was it something other than the quality of the athletes that was the difference? If the difference was slim in the games lost, I have to believe that the difference in years of experience between Mike Price and Sean Kugler will be enough to make up for that slim difference between winning and losing those games that were just a few plays from being wins.

That is how hope works in the land of The Pass To the North. The hopeful grab at anything that can allow us to believe. For me, Mike Price is the best bringer of hope I have seen in 40 years of UTEP football, so when he returns, he brings a truck load of hope with him. I am back to being insanely, ridiculously hopeful for a Win, again after years of being resigned to losing.

GO MINERS!

Some Clarity On Some Terms For Discussion On Firearms

When listening to people discuss firearms, there is an enormous amount of disconnect from accuracy. If the discussion were represented by a bulls-eye target there would be very few shots in the bulls-eye, a few more in the nine and eight rings and on out, with lots of shots barely on paper, and plenty of shots taken by the legs of the target holder, feet below the target itself. So, I am going to take it from the very basics on up to sophisticated systems. I say that with a bit of my tongue in cheek, and I hope by the time I’m finished you will know why. Please excuse me, you gun guys if I go too fast and am not as nuanced as you would like, but I am not doing this for you. I am doing it for the overwhelming majority of the people out there whose knowledge of firearms ranges from almost nothing to the range of knowledge getting to where you gun guys feel like I have giver the average guy a better idea of how things work and what is being talked about.

Here we go. Take a piece of pipe. We will now call that a barrel. there are two ends on our barrel. One of them will be where our projectile being fired exits the barrel. That will be called the muzzle end of our barrel. Now, a bit of physics. Gun powder, when it burns, creates hot, expanding gas with a relatively great amount of energy. As you know, gases expand in all directions. Alright, we are going to close the other end of our barrel. In this case we are going to screw a end cap on it. Then we drill a very small hole in the end cap. Now we have a barrel. Imagine a cannon on a pirate ship, and all our barrel needs is some way to hold it and point it. That handle of our very basic fire arm will be called the stock. I want to point out that I have not made any mention of size of our now complete barrel and stock. We have a barrel, and a way to hold it and point it, a stock. This is a firearm. That simple. All we have to do now is put some gun powder in our barrel to create the hot expanding gases and our projectile on top on it to be propelled down the barrel and out in the direction the muzzle is pointed. That little hole we put in the end cap is how we will be able to get a bit of fire, or spark, from the outside of our barrel to the waiting powder inside. When that happens, the projectile is forced out of the barrel by the gas.

What I have described is called a muzzle loader. Ways to get the fire to the powder evolved. Eventually, a little bit of powder was put into a little metal cap that could be put over that hole in our closed end of our barrel. When those caps were hit by a little hammer, they sparked and the powder in our barrel would “fire”. So, at this time I want you to know that everything that we will be talking about are called firearms for this reason. There are many types of firearms. Firearms worn on or near one’s side are called side arms and those that are longer and carried in our hands, are called long arms. Generally speaking think one hand to hold is a side arm.

So, our fire arm we have made is a muzzle loader. It fires one time and then we have to “reload” it. Pouring gunpowder down the barrel and then pushing a projectile down on top of the gunpowder takes a little bit of time. So, someone decided it was easier to put the powder and projectile/bullet into a this paper “cartridge” that could be pushed down the barrel. So, I want you to remember that word, cartridge.

Cartridges made reloading muzzleloaders much quicker. But still, if you are being attacked the time it takes to reload is life or death at times. In 1835, a man named Sam Colt applied for a patent for a new sidearm. He had put a cylinder of metal at the end of the barrel where our cap had been. The cylinder had holes drilled into it which could hold powder and a round, lead bullet. one was “loaded” at time, until it was full, and it had six places built in to it. Caps were placed on each, at the ready. This pistol was called a revolver. Each time the trigger was pulled, the hammer came down and fired. When the hammer was pulled back another of the six positions came into align with the barrel and the now “cocked” hammer. All of a sudden, a man could fire six times as fast as he could cock the hammer and pull the trigger. THIS IS IMPORTANT! This is the first firearm to put another loaded “round” into place simple by cocking and pulling the trigger. It wasn’t completely automatic, because the hammer had to be manually pulled back first. But, the “fire power” a man could hold in one hand was a giant leap forward. This was a Single Action pistol. With the single action of pulling the hammer back, it was ready to fire with the next pull of the trigger. It didn’t take long to figure out how to make the pulling of the trigger able to make the hammer cock and release. The two actions combined made this type of pistol called a Double Action pistol. It could shoot 6 times as fast as a person could pull the trigger. THIS IS IMPORTANT! A firearm that fires once for every time the trigger is called a semi-automatic(NOT AN AUTOMATIC!). The Double Action revolver is a semi-automatic weapon, but isn’t called that because of it’s original design, and revolver gets close enough in the minds of people who know.

Before I get any further, those “cartridges” improved, too. Instead of paper, the were made of brass that could be reused. They poured at little extra easy to spark powder into the bottom of the brass cartridge that went around the inside bottom rim of the brass. When the brass cartridge was struck, it began the fire completely inside the cartridge. Eventually, as cartridges became more powerful they used a place built into the bottom of the brass case into which a primer(like the caps described above)was pressed These are what are called Center Fired cartridges. So, a cartridge today for a high-powered cartridge is the brass(usually) case, the primer pressed into it, containing a specific amount and type of gunpowder, and a bullet pressed into place.

In 1911, a man named Browning designed a new way of automatically loading another cartridge very quickly. It was ingenious to say the least. It used the same energy from the hot gas of the cartridge to kind of push our end cap in our basic barrel me had made at the beginning backwards at the same time the bullet was being pushed forward and out of the muzzle end. When the barrel was pushed back the empty brass case was allowed to be blown out of the firearm and a spring pushed it back to its original position, but with an unfired cartridge pushed into place from a “magazine”(a place to hold more unused cartridges) below. It Automatically fired each time it shoved a fresh cartridge into place. THAT IS WHAT AN AUTOMATIC WEAPON IS! You pull the trigger one time and it fires AUTOMATICALLY until the supply of cartridges runs out, or the trigger is released. When the trigger is released and returned to the forward position it stops the firing of the weapon. So, he put a switch on it to allow you to fire it each time you pulled the trigger by automatically putting another cartridge into place to fire. That is called SEMI-AUTOMATIC fire. The other position on the switch was AUTOMATIC FIRE. As you can imagine, armies all over the world lined up to buy AUTOMATIC weapons. But, they burn through cartridges and are not exactly pinpoint accurate when firing that way that automatic fire had very limited usefulness. Hunters had no use for automatic fire as it pretty much takes the aiming and skill out of the sport. There was another group that could see the advantage of automatic fire. Gangsters. It quickly became apparent that allowing gangsters, murderers for a living to have automatic weapons was a problem. So, automatic weapons were made illegal for civilians unless they had a specific reason for having such a weapon. Basically impossible for the average person to get.

But, the ways to make the trigger pull quickly are limited only by imagination. For those thinking that any device that does that can be outlawed, I want you to know that the same backwards and forwards action, with a little practice can be used to do the same thing using a belt loop on a pair of pants. The sliding butt stocks used by the murderer in Las Vegas used the backwards action and a spring to provide the way to pull the trigger quickly. SO, the murderer had legal to own SEMI-Automatic weapons. The bump stocks and other mechanical devices used to pull the trigger quickly have not been banned. As you can imagine, they rush to ban these will be made quickly.

I have given you some basic knowledge of firearms in order for you to better understand what is being talked about. I do this because you will hear the word automatic weapons used a whole lot by people who are wrong. Watch for it, and if someone is using Automatic to describe a semi-automatic firearm they are either not informed or they are purposely misleading for a reason. One is ignorant and the other is deceitful, both are not to be trusted.

I have tried to give you straight information without any bias. I hope this has been of some service in helping to make discussions just a little more accurate. I would like to think that if you paid attention you could at least hit the target and score some points, speaking accurately.

Gun Laws

There is a lot of confusion out there. So, let me kind of simplify. Beginning at least with Moses and The Lord, thou shalt not murder was in the Top Ten of laws. It is still, right there at or near the top in our modern-day justice system. Anyone who is a murderer, or intent on murder has already decided that the perhaps number one law of all does not matter. And the difference between murder and other crimes is enormous. Like murder is in a whole new ball park. So, what methods they use, and any laws regarding them are only going to cause them to adjust their method. Each and every one of us knows that the ways to kill people are limited only by imagination. Airliners can become guided missiles. A simple addition of a spring in a butt stock can allow a rifle to fire at an automatic rate. That little adaptation and others will be quickly outlawed. Just so that you know, a belt loop can be used pretty effectively to do pretty much the same thing. Imagination can’t be outlawed. Murder is. Mass murder is outlawed and yet the imagination is endless when it comes to ways to kill lots of people. But, people, even though their brains can think of it do it because murder is just wrong. Murder is so wrong it goes before the Ten Commandments. In the very first societies one of the first thing that had to be agreed upon was to not just kill each other. Those who did, were called murderers. They were dealt with.

The only way to prevent murders, or mass murders, is for murderers to decide not to murder. Those who try to keep murderers from being able to murder play a ridiculous game of whack a mole. Will there always be murderers? Yes. Does it mean that we can do nothing? Nope. The starting point is getting back to convincing fellow humans that murder is more than just against the law. Is that hard to do. Yes, it is, but is is no harder than trying to guess what the next mass murderer will come up with, and then keeping them from being able to carry it out or adapt to whatever changes are needed to do the murdering they want.

“Well, we don’t want you to be able to kill us with a gun!”, you say. Can you hear the stupidity in that. OK. How about this glowing red-hot fireplace poker shoved up your ass? Better? I don’t want you to kill me, isn’t silly at all, though. So, rather than making laws to take from people things they would never use to hurt those people wanting to take them, unless they tried to impose their silliness upon them and tried to take them, that energy should be spent on promoting the original idea that murder is totally wrong and unacceptable.

I would much rather see late night hosts and celebrities spend as much of their time and energy making it clear that MURDER IS WRONG. MURDER IS THE PROBLEM AND NOT THE WEAPON USED! It wasn’t O.J.’s evil knife that slit throats. It was a murderer! That knife was doing absolutely nothing. OJ was! It wasn’t because that knife was a “weapon of war” or an “assault” knife. It would be scary looking to some. But to most, it would simply be a knife. If you are stupid enough to be worrying about flash suppressors, adjustable stocks, rail mounts and such I hope dull knives don’t send you into a closet to hide, too. Because the dull knife is just as dangerous or more so. A pointed rock is an assault rock as opposed to a nice smooth river rock smashing a skull!?

Coach Mike Price Says He Won’t Be Changing Things Much

From what he said, he made it pretty clear that he was brought back to put in place someone who knows how to run the day to day operations along with Nate Poss, and I think more than anything else, to try and stop the bleeding of the fan loss. He said that he didn’t think Stull wanted to completely rearrange the offense, and that the players were recruited and were used to this offense. In a very classy move, unlike some, he not only didn’t disparage the previous coach, he immediately , as a leader knows how to do, stood up for his men, his new staff. He basically said that the players needed to step up and make plays.

Now, Coach Price is as charming a man as you will find. You almost wouldn’t know that he is a fierce competitor because he is really good at letting people see what he wants them to see. But, make no mistake. He is as competitive as it gets. So, his job will be to take the team he has, the style it was recruited for, and turn it from a loser into a winner. Seems like magic. Using the same players, coaches, and style of play and win where Kugler was losing.

I know that some of the players may be very upset at losing their coach and even more so about how they found out, but if you think Mike Price can charm a snake, know this, he is a football guy from the ground up, inside out, and you just wait until he has a chance to work with them. He is what nowadays is called a “player’s coach”. I can here it where I sit, “Big Play!” shouts CMP after an especially good play during practice, and the cheer is repeated by all. No one doubts the character of these players. Kugler must be giver his due credit for that. Mike, and just three days of practice is all he will need to pull these fine young men together. They won’t go into the Western Kentucky game with their heads down. He will have them not only ready to fight, but looking forward to the fun of it. That is his magic.

Mike Price knows football. He knows that the wider field of college football allows the offense to spread the defense out further to open up gaps. It allows him to do more with less, a situation he has known and used to get to where he has gotten to in his career. What is kind of funny, is that he is not some kind of offensive genius, with all kinds of intricate plays. When early on after Stull had let Mike know that I was getting too much video and was afraid it could be used to spy on the team, Eric laughed and told me that they ran about 25 plays and anyone could get plenty of video tape of their plays by looking at game films. My reason for mentioning this is to make it clear that, the magic touch that Mike Price has always brought with him is the spark, the energy that he brings. His energy becomes the player’s energy on the field.

It was that energy that needed success in order to maintain itself that faded with time, perhaps the last time. But I think you will see a little of his magic, his energy along with the enormous weight lifted from the players backs, psychologically, in the first game. The coaches all seemed to believe that they were just a few plays here and there from winning, their way. Well, players and coaches, Mike Price and his Big Play, have some fun at practice, and energy is just that extra jolt you were looking for.

I had predicted a big loss. Vegas has the Miners as 18.5 point dogs. I’ve never been much of a gambler, but I would be very tempted to put some money on that spread. Mike Price is one of those coaches that could win with the other team’s players. I don’t know what the final score will be, but I truly believe the team will play with a spark. I believe Kugler had his troops, great soldiers, prepared for battle. As Kugler said, they would compete. They will have that character and strength that Kugler gave them. But, hey will have that special spark, the jolt of energy and inspiration that Mike Price will give them. May I remind you of what the football felt like during the end of the Nord era. Now, remember how the same players did under Price. He won’t be changing things much. But, it may be flat out amazing what a little change can make for a team perhaps just needing a little something.

Go Miners!

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