My thoughts about UTEP Football.

[UTEPDefense]

Here are my random thoughts that I posted on the other board:

-  First, to be honest, I have really been down since the Rice loss.  I simply did not have a good time at the game, it sucked.  After this year, I will have sat through 11 losing seasons in the past 12 years and this weekend it really started to wear on me.  For these 11 losing seasons, I have attended nearly every game, I have attended every Spring Game, listened to nearly every weekly Coach's radio show, I have read every daily UTEP article that I can find.  I have been a supporter of Kugler, but more importantly I am a UTEP fan and I will be a UTEP fan long after Kugler is gone, so for me my sad feelings haven't been for Kugler, they have been for me seeing my program and my team in such a bad place.  I hate seeing only 15k people in the stands and I hate watching football that leaves me feeling upset.  This reminds me of when I attended bad UTEP games as a kid.  At least then as a kid, I could cheer for my favorite player Barron Wortham, but now seeing it first hand just leaves me depressed.

-  What causes a lot of gloom for me  at this moment is knowing that a new Coach is going to need 2-3 years to change systems and also get his own players.  You can rarely buy into the hype that a first year coach or coordinator will be able to convert a team, especially at UTEP.  This means that I will be sitting through more crap for a minimum of a few more years at best.

-  Back in April, during the Spring Game, I remember being disapointed and telling my Wife that Kugler is going to get fired.  I then began my Spring Summary on the digs board with this exact quote:  "I have been a Kugler supporter, but I am concerned for him after this Spring Game."  Basically everything that I wrote and feared after that Spring Game has come true.  You can read exactly what I wrote here at this link:

https://utep.forums.rivals.com/threads/spring-game-roll-call.7138/#post-81367

-  It upsets me that I can sit in the stands at a Spring Game and see glaring problems, yet nobody in our football program neither see's their importance or make any adjustments towards these problems in the 5 months since.

-  I had an old High School Coach tell me that we were bigger and more athletic on defense after seeing us in Ruidoso this year.  I began to buy the hype that we were going to be improved and looked for reasons for optimism.  I posted that I wanted to wait until after the Rice game before forming my opinion on this team. The obvious answer now is that Kugle can not get it done on the field.

-  Firing Kugler mid-season is probably not an option.  The money is one issue, the best interest of the kids is another issue.  Additionally, who would we leave the program to for the remainder of the year?  In my opinion, Pease would need to be fired at the same moment as Kugler and that type of change is just too extreme for the kids.  It will probably wait until after the season.

-  What I don't understand is why doesn't Kugler see the importance of isolating his O-Line?  I will give you a basketball analogy, in basketball you want to get your best player in one-on-one situations.  If you have a really good post player, you want to get him the ball in isolation and let him work.  You don't throw it to him in the post when he is double-teamed and force him to go against the double team.  So taking this analogy to Kugler, he has built an O-Line that is a strength of this team.  Why not spread the WR's wide and let the O-Line block only against the D-Line and second level LB's, isolate them and let them work, instead of bringing everybody into to box so they have more guys to block and no longer have one-on-one battles.  Go back to the WKU game 3 years ago when we were running 3 WR's our isolated 5 O-Line formation was pounding against the 4 WKU dlinemen in the box.  That worked great and we controlled the game until we threw a pick 6.  Doesn't it make more sense to isolate your strength and letting your best unit work one-on-one with opposing d-lines, instead of bringing more defenders into the box and forcing your O-Line to block more guys while you try to slam a 5'6" running back behind them?  Go back to Aaron Jones long TD runs at Texas Tech and then again at the Longhorns.  It was a similar set to what we did in that WKU game.  It created success.  Have you seen UTEP try to run that same play once this entire year?  I haven't.

-  We went the ENTIRE first half without trying to stretch the field in our passing game even once.

-  Our outside LB's are very poor.  They got directly run over twice and they didn't have the speed to keep contain.  So basically we have outside LB's that aren't big enough to tackle heads-up and they aren't fast enough to run down an outside play.  If you can't do either then you have a bad situation.

-  I wanted to walk out of the stadium when we gave up a draw play for a first down on 3rd and 18.  Does anybody remember when La. Tech did the exact same thing against twice in the same game during Kugler's first year.

-  I know that there were other factors involve, but I believe that our defense might be better had we kept Stoker and not switched to Mason.

-  I have never seen a team run so many succesful shovel passes in one game as Rice did.  It was a part of their option and Mason has proven that he has no clue how to prepare a defense against an option.  After the OU game, I said that we need to just not show up to the Army game this year and I think that is even more true after the Rice game.

-  Our defense does not have the ability to stop off-tackle runs.  Seeing the replays of this yesterday made me feel more hopeless.

-  Our 3 d-linemen are handled too easily.  It appears to me in my opinion, that a 4 down linemen set would work better for us based on the type of d-linemen that we have on this team.  I just don't see how our 3 d-linemen are going to be effective enough this year to be succesful, it's basically the same bad upfront defense that I have been watching for the past 12 years.  An adjustment to 4 d-linemen could possibly force other teams to do something different.

-  Our CB's are decent, but it doesn't matter because teams are having so much easy success in other areas that they don't need to throw it their way.

- Our defense only gave up 10 points in the first half, but don't let that fool you.  We are not a good defense at this moment.

-  I hated hearing Greg Long screaming in pain on the field and I wish the best for him and his recovery.

-  If Kugler has any loyalty and motivation within this program, then I would expect a good early showing against Arizona.  Another terrible or flat start would tell us about what's going on inside.

-  I would really hate losing to NMSU this year, but at this moment that looks highly likely.  At this point, finding a miracle to win that game would be the most that we can hope for this season.

-  I can remember following UTEP football since 1987.  I have never seen us have a football season where we lost every single game. I truly hope for the best, but avoiding that seems to be the only possible goal at this moment.

[kyyote]

It causes me to say bad things. 

[Minermojo]

-  Firing Kugler mid-season is probably not an option.  The money is one issue, the best interest of the kids is another issue.  Additionally, who would we leave the program to for the remainder of the year?  In my opinion, Pease would need to be fired at the same moment as Kugler and that type of change is just too extreme for the kids.  It will probably wait until after the season.

[/quote]


Personally, I'd be thrilled if they fired him now, mid-season or the end of it. Mid-season would give the new coach an idea of what he has right now. He might even be able to change a few things like the ones you mentioned.

As a woman once said, "give me the head of John the Baptist" I'd say give me the head of our football team and shoo him out of the stadium. He's picked up enough green backs already where I won't feel bad for him.   

[zyxwvutsru]

fuck 'em and feed 'em fish

[Colominer]

-  I know that there were other factors involve, but I believe that our defense might be better had we kept Stoker and not switched to Mason.

[/quote]

 Nothing against Mason, but getting rid of Stoker made no sense at all. I'd rather they gave him the Head Coach position.

[zyxwvutsru]

 l  liked Stoker

[SisyphusMiner]

What I don't understand is why doesn't Kugler see the importance of isolating his O-Line?  ...[edit]...  Why not spread the WR's wide and let the O-Line block only against the D-Line and second level LB's, isolate them and let them work, instead of bringing everybody into to box so they have more guys to block and no longer have one-on-one battles.  ...[edit]...  Doesn't it make more sense to isolate your strength and letting your best unit work one-on-one with opposing d-lines, instead of bringing more defenders into the box and forcing your O-Line to block more guys while you try to slam a 5'6" running back behind them? ...[edit]...
-  We went the ENTIRE first half without trying to stretch the field in our passing game even once.

This made me think a lot.  Here's a suggestion of what might be going on in Kugs head. 

There's really two ways you can beat an opponent that has superior athleticism. 

You can be completely wide open and hope that you burn the other team enough times to make the difference.  See Mike Price.
You can try to slow the game down to where there is only one possession difference between you, and hope they make a couple mistakes that you can capitalize on and win the game.  Haskins did this to perfection against superior teams.  This is clearly the path Kug has chosen.

However, both CMP and CSK completely failed to understand two things.

The first thing is that neither of these approaches work if you are predictable.  You have to be very unpredictable.  You can be wide open and be predictable.  Eric Price was not predictable.  Aaron Price was extremely predictable.  You can be conservative and be unpredictable.  Hell the triple option is conservative but at least the defense can't assume you are going to run between the tackles every play.  Kug's offense is extremely conservative and extremely predictable.

The second thing is that neither of these approaches is right if you are the superior team athletically (unless you are so superior athletically you can do whatever the hell you want).  Against say a UNT you open it up a bit if you normally play conservative, or you dial it back a bit if you normally play aggressive.

Basically, it's always an exercise in optimizing risk/reward.  Against superior teams you go pretty far one way or the other on that continuum.  Against inferior teams (if there are any) you go somewhere in the middle.  But in no case does the risk/reward come out in your favor if every damn player as well as the drunk fan and the 3 year old kid and my wife know what we are going to run.

Both Kug and CMP (post-Eric) suffered from the extreme predictability problem.  We just aren't so dominant against anyone that we can effectively announce to the defense what we are running and expect success.  It doesn't have to mean playing risky, but for crying out loud not always the same play from the same down/distance/formation.  Kug thinks conservative = predictable because he just doesn't have enough imagination.

[kyyote]

I really do appreciate the amount of thought that went into your analysis, both of you.  But I think Bloomquist nailed it.  Passing is for Nancy-boys, and real men run between the tackles, every time.

[UTEPDefense]

Good post Sis!  I think something that really proves some of Kugler's flaws, is that UTEP has thrown it more than they have run it in both games this season, yet nobody realizes that.  Most people would be surprised to hear that, hell, I have watched every play this season and don't feel like that's the case, but it is.  We threw 6 more time so than we rushed in the first game and threw 7 more times than we rushed in the second game.  The problem is where we are passing, we are almost attacking the same spaces where we are running, so it isn't tough to defend.  We are using very simple and repetitive route structures and asking average WR's with little separation ability to go get open running routes that other teams are prepared for based on formations.  Simply doing more of something, but not doing it smarter, does not accomplish anything and that is what it feels like is the case with Kugler.

Nobody has mentioned this, but during the first half of the game against Rice, UTEP was constantly switching it's Right Tackle.  We would send Brooks into the game on running plays and then when I saw Long running out there to replace him, I knew we were going to pass.  Once I recognized it, then with about 70%-80% accuracy, I was able to sit in the stands and tell you if it was going to be a running play or a passing play before our team even broke the huddle, solely based on who was out there at Right Tackle.  There were then some other times when they were both in the game at the same time(lined up as RT and TE).  But if I can see this, then certainly a paid D1 coach can also see this. Other teams have a good idea of what we are going to do on each play and the results seem to verify this with a first half shut-out and us only gaining 51 yards of offense. 

What's done is done, I just hope that our next Coach is able to ignite some type of fresh excitement into our Program.