The Mine – Page 10 – Kyyote's Den

Defensive Line

I remember when we were using a three five defense, the linemen were supposed to tie up the opposing offensive linemen so the linebackers could make plays. I say that to make it clear that stats about tackles, like all statistics can be misleading. But, when looking at rankings for sacks it doesn’t matter who wasn’t making the tackles UTEP was horrible. Maybe horrible is too easy on them. We also know that there are lots of factors that go into getting those sacks. So, I figured I would just bring you some information. Here is the team stats for the defense last season;

Defensive Leaders gp-gs ua a tot tfl/yds no-yds int-yds brup qbh rcv-yds ff kick saf
16 Alvin Jones 10-8 44 49 93 6.0-28 2.5-22 . 1 . . . . .
45 Dante Lovilotte 12-12 38 51 89 6.5-18 0.5-7 . 3 4 . 1 . .
36 Nick Usher 12-12 35 42 77 8.0-41 5.5-31 . 2 5 . . 1 .
27 Devin Cockrell 12-12 31 27 58 3.0-8 . . 1 1 1-0 . . .
20 Nik Needham 12-12 28 26 54 2.0-3 . . 11 . . . . .
2S Dashone Smith 12-12 25 28 53 . . 2-7 3 . . . . .
55 Mike Sota 12-9 12 35 47 2.5-4 . . 1 2 . . . .
1 Kalon Beverly 10-8 24 17 41 . . 1-0 6 . . . . .
3 Jayson VanHook 12-9 17 19 36 5.5-18 1.0-2 . . . . . . .
56 Sky Logan 12-4 12 22 34 2.5-6 0.5-2 . 3 . 1-27 . . .
24 Brendan Royal 12-0 14 19 33 1.5-8 . 1-12 3 . . . . .
54 Silas Firstley 12-7 13 20 33 2.5-5 1.0-1 . . 1 . . . .
97 Brian Madunezim 12-6 6 26 32 1.0-10 1.0-10 . . 4 . 1 . .
63 Gino Bresolin 10-10 8 17 25 . . . . 2 . . . .
33 Lawrence Montegut 12-0 12 12 24 1.5-5 0.5-4 . . 2 1-0 . 1 .
23 Justin Rogers 11-4 10 7 17 . . 1-26 7 1 1-0 1 . .
8J Johnny Jones 11-0 4 9 13 . . . . . . . . .
49 Gene Hopkins 10-5 10 3 13 3.0-17 1.0-11 . . . . 1 . .
44 Cooper Foster 12-0 4 7 11 . . . . . . . . .
9 Chris Richardson 12-2 4 17 21 . . . 1 . . . . .

39 Kolbi McGary 10-0 8 1 9 . . 1-2 1 . . . . . 95 Denzel Chukwukelu 7-0 4 4 8 . . . . 2 . . . .
66 Christian Harper 12-0 . 7 7 . . . . . . . . .
12 Adrian Hynson 12-0 1 4 5 . . . . . . . . .
84 Luke Elsner 3-0 3 2 5 . . . . . . . . .
1S Devin Simmons 6-0 2 2 4 . . . . . . . . .
5 Leon Hayes 12-0 2 2 4 . . . . . . . . .
43 Makana Fraser 3-0 1 2 3 . . . . . . . . .
52 Dylan Parsee 10-0 1 2 3 . . . . 1 . . . .
9 Jaquan White 12-0 2 1 3 . . . . . . . . .
34 Stephen Forester 3-0 1 2 3 . . . . . . . . .
6 Brandon Moss 11-0 3 . 3 . . . . . . . . .
85 Hayden Plinke 12-12 2 . 2 . . . . . . . . .
14 Alex Jean Charles 5-0 2 . 2 . . . . . . . . .
7W Curtez Woods 2-0 2 . 2 . . . . . . . . .
98 Foster Dixson 6-0 . 2 2 0.5-4 0.5-4 . . . . . . .
67 Anthony Kyles 8-1 . 1 1 . . . . . . . . .
15 Darrin Laufasa 12-12 . 1 1 . . . . . . . . .
10 Warren Redix 12-6 . 1 1 . . . . . . . . .
18 Jerrell Brown 4-0 1 . 1 . . . . . . . . .
47 Jay Mattox 12-0 1 . 1 . . . . . . . . .
29 Aaron Jones 12-12 . 1 1 . . . . . . . . .
83 Tyler Batson 11-0 . . . . . . . . . . 1 .
7 Kavika Johnson 12-1 . . . . . . 1 . . . . .
TM TEAM 8-0 . . . . . . . . 1-0 . . .
Total 12 387 488 875 46-175 14-94 6-47 44 25 5-27 4 3 .
Opponents 12 406 378 784 72-345 22-186 8-165 45 30 8-63 9 2

I know this post is about the d-line, but I may have to put it up in two posts. Nick Usher is gone on. The next d-lineman on the list is Mike Sota and he returns as a Senior. Then, Sky Logan is the next returning lineman on the list. Silas Firstly has moved on as has Madunezum and Bresolin. Chris Richardson is a returning Red Shirt Sophomore as is Gene Hopkins. Chukwukelu (S) is next. Harper was a Senior last year. Now that you have that to chew on, I will give you the info on the d-linemen themselves in Part 2.

comment here in the Den;

http://kyyotesden.com/den/index.php?topic=54.0

Nepotism

The kind I kind of like. Doing some research I noticed that although Kugler’s son chose to go elsewhere, a couple of former Miners are continuing the tradition of playing for UTEP. Robert Pufahl played with Kugler under Stull and his son Robert Jr. saw some playing time against North Texas last season. Also, Red Shirt Freshman Barron Wortham Jr. will have his chance to play. For those who may not know, his dad played here (90-93) and was drafted by the Houston Oilers.

Miners Football-Grab Your Binoculars

Sean Kugler will be the Head Coach at UTEP until the year 2020. His contract was extended, a commitment was made. It is Kugler Ball at UTEP. The powers that be at UTEP are happy with the direction of the program off of the field and have evidently made the decision that they will take whatever fan support they get. That may be a great topic for another time, the amount of difference fan support makes in their decision making, but not this time. I am more interested in wins and losses on the field, this time. My focus is on whether or not the football team can win football games. I expect them to pass their classes and keep from being arrested off the field. But, I am not thinking about their grades during a football game.

This season will be a brutal test for a team that has had trouble finding wins. Coach Kugler has preached power running football, based on smash mouth and not tricks. Line ’em up and believe that my guys can push the other guys backwards. Simple as it was when I was ten years old. Paired with a defense that can go flat-out on every play because the offense will keep them fresh. For the most part, his offense has done their job. The trouble has been the defense. Other teams score in the blink of an eye. On comes the UTEP Offense and they grind away. But, if the offense stalls and has to punt, because the defense can’t keep another team from scoring, UTEP quickly falls behind. When that happens, they start passing, an aspect of the game they avoid usually and become desperately predictable. At that point, people get hurt and things get ugly.

So if we want to get a look at the future, the best place to look is at the defense. The saying goes that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing and expect different results, so maybe that is a quick place to look for answers. Things always change so it is a matter of how much and what kind if the Miners expect to win more than a child’s handful of games. There are two parts to the defense. Coaching and players is our first breakdown of the defense.

Tom Mason is serving as the Defensive Coordinator and Linebackers Coach. He has been around forever, well nearly 40 years of coaching. This will be his second year at UTEP. Last season he was the Linebackers Coach. I am going to say right up front that he knows defense enough to be the Defensive Coordinator. His knowledge and ability to coach should not be a question. UTEP’s website says this; “Mason’s defense ranked third in C-USA in opponent first downs (22.1 per game) and ranked fifth in total defense (419.3 yards per game allowed).” We all know about lies, damned lies, and statistics. This is one. It picks two areas that look good, ignoring the other important statistics, and their reason for the two good stats given are really misleading. Opponents don’t make one first down on a two play scoring drive and taking over on offense inside UTEP’s 50 yard line and instantly scoring means the opponents can score 14 points /100 yards to our hope for 7 points per 100 yards. So, what we have to look for is a change in the ability to stop the quick scores.

There are pretty much two factors that account for the quick scores. One is ability to cover receivers by defensive backs and the other is the time the quarterback has to throw. Both have been a problem in the past few years. Or forever. So we perhaps should look at coaches and players there, and changes that might be reason to have hope.

Andrew Browning is the D-Line coach and has been for 5 seasons. I went back four years(because that is what the site allowed me to do easily) and looked at UTEP’s ranking in Sacks and Tackles For Loss. In 2013/14 the Miners ranked 118th in Sacks and 121st in Tackles For Loss. Just about as bad as it gets. The next season he cut those horrible rankings just about in half, ranking 74th in Sacks and 64th in TFL. The 2015/16 season saw a slip back to 83rd in Sacks and 91st in TFL. The 2016/17 season saw a return to just horrible, ranking 117th in Sacks and 126 in Tackles For Loss!

I don’t think you need to even look at the defensive backs. Who can cover when the defensive line is putting no pressure on the quarterback? The thing is, it is the d-backs that look like they can’t cover when that happens. They give up huge plays. So, I am going to leave it right there for now. There has to be a reason for those changes in rankings under the same coach. That is where we will pick it up the next time.

Discuss it in the Den; http://kyyotesden.com/den/index.php?board=1.0

Sapphires and Gold

My niece Dijon sent me a bag of sand and gravel. It was from the J.M. Saksa Mine in Montana. She said it is full of sapphires. Well, at the time I couldn’t spot a sapphire if you bounced them off of my head. She told me that the sand also had gold in it and to save it. I started picking out anything larger than a quarter of an inch. I had lots of zip lock bags of

varying sized pebbles. I studied them carefully trying to figure out if it was special or just a piece of rock. Eventually, I learned to spot them. Most, are less than the size of a BB. They are yellow, pink, and blue. They can be used as accents in jewelry and the larger ones faceted and set in rings.

They sat in a box for months, as I had moved on to other things such as faceting and working with silver. Rummaging around looking for something else, I found a couple of bags of the sand and gravel. I figured it was time to clean some of the stuff out, but I wasn’t about to throw it in the trash. I don’t happen to have a gold panning pan, but the little red plastic solo bowls we had in the cupboards were just the right size for panning as I sat watching television. While it was working, kind of, I decided to try a different method. I dug out a quart soda bottle from the recycle bag and with a funnel, I spooned my precious pay dirt into it.

I poked a hole into the bottle near the top and put the neck of the bottle under running water(the water from my fish pond filter). The water washed around in the bottle pushing the light stuff out of the hole I made and settling the heavier stuff toward to bottom.

You can see a few specks in the pictures below. In the first one is a nice flake. It is shown on the other pictures to give you the scale.

Now, this isn’t enough to retire on, but I am already good to go on that count. But it is GOLD! This is just what can be seen and within the sand is quite a bit more of the precious metal. It was mined here in the good old United States of America. So, that makes it special. When you find it and pick it out of the sand yourself, that too, is special. Especially if you are a Miner! The thing is, I have a design in my mind that requires just a tiny bit of gold. So, this may find its way into a piece of custom jewelry. Oh, and all of that sand, well it is still full of sapphires. Work, work, work. No rest for the weary. Life is good.