OU TAIL GATE

[KiddMiner]

Hey all

It may be early but, are there any plans for a Den tailgate in Norman? We can invite Norman from Norman.........

[SisyphusMiner]

I live about a two hour drive away, but I don't see spending money and time to go watch my MIners get their butts kicked that bad in person. 

[KiddMiner]

get it, I drove to Denton last year and was not happy, the loss to UNT made for a long drive back to the OKC metro. My co-worker is an OU season ticket holder and OU was having a special for the UTEP game, $69.00 a ticket, I told him I would take 3, he is on vaca right now and I am hoping he was able to score them.

[SisyphusMiner]

Losing to UNT hurt.  Losing to OU even badly won't hurt the same way, it's more of a what's the point? We show up, we hope we have a few signs of life, we hope we get out without any major injuries, we cash our check, and on to the next game. 

[Chanson]

I like playing big schools, however it's hard to avoid injuries.

[SisyphusMiner]

I'd like us to play big schools that aren't perenially in the top 10.  There's lots of schools out there that are beatable in a down year for them.  OU is not one of those.

[kyyote]

We ar so used to having 2 win seasons teams that we don't even see these games for what they are-an opportunity to compete against teams that are really good.  Other teams see it as a tough game.  We see it not even as competition.  After last year, where we actually played like a normal college football team, capable of winning games,  this year I am actually looking forward to seeing how we stand up to OU.  I think we are going to surprise them by being competitive.  It gives us a chance to see if Hardison can take advantage of OU's defense early in a season while they are finding their stride.  Remember that AAC teams are becoming big12 teams and cusa teams moved up.  These are teams we need to be able to compete with and beat.  UTEP football is in a fight for its existence.  If we don't make hay while cusa still has life or we will be looking at a final cut.  This year is critical for UTEP to prove it is a team worth having on your conference schedule.  We are in the shakiest conference in college football and we must not be in the bottom half of the teams of that conference ever again.  We have to be to top half of the conference and being so because we are good enough to beat teams and not because our conference mates are so bad even we can beat them.

We are in a season that is an audition.  Every single game is an audition.

[KiddMiner]

Well KY, I agree, on the premise of being competitive I would like to roll the clock back to the end of the Price era. I remember the Wisconsin game, the UCF game, the Ole Miss game, OU in the Sun Bowl, and others, a shame we didn't win but......we sure as hell did compete.

I believe the key for our future would be to sign CDD to a long-term contract should we produce a winning season, 7 or more wins. All UTEP needs to do to continue to elevate the program is be consistent as many have said before. Just continue to win 7 to 10 games a season and the rest will fall into place. And as others have before said the City needs to get involved in some way.

Picks Up

[kyyote]

I agree with most of what you said. I would like to see if Hardison is carrying CDD and that we won?t revert to pre Hardison football.

[SisyphusMiner]

From what I've seen, I think CDD wants to run a more interesting offense but keeps having to dial it back because he has a QB that he can't rely on to hit the mid-distance pass.  In the games where Hardison was passing well we played a more open offense, ran up a 10 point lead and then shut it down.  My only quibble is I would want to run up a 14 point lead prior to shutting down.

I don't hate Hardison, I'm just realistic about what he is and isn't good at.  IMO, his play is both our floor and our ceiling next year.  I don't actually know if it's realistic to expect us to get much better of a QB at the level we play at.  Looking at our league last year, there were maybe two QBs that were meaningfully better.

I think Dimel gives us our best shot in years at respectability.  I don't know where his ceiling is, but let's worry about that after our 4th or 5th winning season in a row.

I think the Price era could have done it if we had found a way to keep Eric or made CMP demote Aaron and hire a real OC.  But Stull was mailing it in by that point and didn't have the balls.

[Austintacious]

If I tried to go to the game, I wouldn't make past the Oklahoma-Texas border at the WinStar Casino.  They do have a nice poker room.