5 interceptions in the first half. Is that the most UTEP thing or what?

[UTEPDefense]

One additional thought is that Dimel has put up these great offensive percentage improvements despite the fact that he had to play double the amount of top 50 defenses this year(4) than we played last year(2).

We also played against more defenses ranked in the top 100 this year, than we had to play last year.

[kyyote]

So, you would agree that the cupboard wasn't the huge problem, right.  My complaint has been with his play at quarterback and his choices that go into that play at quarterback.  That is what makes me crazy because I think it has been responsible for losses.  What I want is wins.  100% improvement over last year's win total is not nearly good enough for me.  I am just unreasonable to ask for a team that has a chance of winning more that 8% of their games.  If Dimel wins 2 games next season he will be showing another huge year(percentage wise) of improvement.  Man, I will have steam coming out of my ears at the doubling of the wins.  Insanely unreasonably!  This is UTEP! 
There are only two columns. Wins and losses.  There is no Improvement column.


Dimel has gone from none all the way up to one.  Not the number I was looking for.  I believe he has not lived up to my expectations, or the potential of the team with decent qb play.

[Colominer]

 Utepian and utepianism will make fine additions to the dictionary.

[kyyote]

One more stat.  Dimel's starting quarterback is rank in a dead heat tie for last place at 108 in pass completion percentage.  Less than half.  0.497  My vision doesn't involve have the last place qb in passing completions.  Unreasonable?  Well, surely Jones has got to be better.  Yes. he and Metz both complete 50% of their passes.  Those two aren't ranked on the ncaa stats but they would be right there with our number 1 qb vying for last place.   So, he had to know what Metz's condition was by the start of the season, and has gone with the two quarterbacks who both have lets just say perhaps had trouble with the transition to Division 1 ball.  That is weak to start the season, but you don't know what you don't know.  But starting the season with an wounded qb and two untested jc transfers was his plan.  now, for at least the last two or three games what would it have cost to try Mark Torres, a local qb who was quite the passer.  I say he would at least have to prove to me that he was worse.  That is pretty much my case.  It is UTEP football.

Look, I am not screaming and yelling about all of this.  But, it does drive me crazy and I write about here.  Maybe I shouldn't. 

[Minermojo]

Careful Old man. Remember, your heart, don't want you blowing a gasket as you already know how bad we've always been. So, it's not worth it.

[liebestraum]

To be fair, Locksley was highly-touted coming out of high school and out of junior college.  So his signing seemed like a good deal at the time.  Obviously the step to D1 - even the nether regions - was apparently too much.  And I feel bad about that.

lieb

[kyyote]

Like I said, you don't know what you don't know.  I understand that.  But, it is how it has gone down, too.  He had Locksley and Metz going down to the wire as starters.  He had to be forced to play Jones by the injuries to Metz and Locksley.  Jones immediately came in and gave the team a spark.  So, Dimel starts Locksley the next game.  And Jones comes in and gets things going after Locksley fails.  OK, start Locksley again, throw a couple of interceptions, bring in Jones, throw a couple of interceptions and bring Locksley back to do it again.  Now, please remember that UTEP does have another quarterback.  Mark Jones was a serious star quarterback in El Paso, is a sophomore, and has played in games.  I just want to know why in the world you wouldn't give him a shot.  He almost could not possible be worse.  Remember that the three ahead of him rand in the top ten of worst, statistically in pass comp percentage.  Show me. Make me eat my words. Maybe he would be worse.  But what the fuck is the harm in trying? You don't want to shatter the other three's confidence?  I don't mean to say that I think Torres is the answer.  I am saying I don't understand not trying him.  But, whatever.  UTEP is my school and I will always love it. 

[UTEPDefense]

Coach Haskins used to always say that he didn't like recruiting JC players because you usually only get one good year out of them.  Even JC players usually need a year to adjust to D1 football. 

Maybe Torres could help, but he is a guy who could only produce a 29% completion percentage last season.  Far worse than either first year QB that UTEP has used this year.  For comparison, Jones only has 13 more pass attempts this season than Torres had last year, yet Jones has a 50% completion percentage and Locksely is 49.1%.  Torres could also only work his way up to 4th string in the preseason, those reasons don't give me confidence that he could produce better results. 

Our team has only won 1 game since the start of last season, yet we have had 5 different coordinators during this exact same time frame(3 offensive and 2 defensive since the start of last year).  Did all 5 coordinators just not know what they were doing?, are all 5 bad coaches?  Or is this more likely due to a low talent level, which has been the only common denominator through all of these losses? 

[kyyote]

I am really not trying to be argumentative but a) comp % under Kugler as the third or fourth string qb was when the qb was being the Christian thrown to the lions is not really fair.  But, say you are right.  Every team we have played has been able to find a quarterback with a better completion percentage than all three of ours.  What are the odds!  How is it Northern Arizona can find a decent qb and we can't?  and the other teams we play.  AND I WOULD BET $10 they have backups that are better.  How?  Why?  Price never had any trouble finding a quarterback, did he?  Or back ups to them?  Seriously, think about all of the quarterbacks on all of the teams we have played and then rate all of theirs withours and think about what the list would look like and how it would seem so impossible for it to be that way.  Odds would be that if you were trying it wouldn't look any worse.

Anyway, it is almost over.

[UTEPDefense]

I certainly am not stating that we have a QB on the roster today that can lead us to good success, that is still a big question.  But In my opinion, Dimel inherited a roster that did not have that cailber of QB on it and he has improved the QB situation as best he could with the scraps that were left over to recruit after he got hired. 

I also certainly agree with you that our QB recruiting and improvement needs to be a top priority.  My hope is that based on the players that he has brought in, that our overall talent level will rise the more that he is able to recruit.  In just a short amount of time to recruit(he has still been here less than 12 months) Dimel brought in our best defensive player this season(AJ Hotchkins) and arguably our best O-linemen this season(Henry).  I am looking forward to seeing what happens when his entire recruiting classes start playing.

As for Price, he certainly had the ability to score against a lot of match-ups, although my concern with thinking that the QB play was great, is that Lamaison had a 50.0% completion percentage in his final season under Price, while Vittatoe only had a 54.1% completion percentage in his final year.  So Vittatoe was a four year starter, and Lamaison was a two year starter, but in their final years, they only produced completion percentages which were essentially the same that our two first year JC QB’s have produced this season.  I understand that completion percentage is not everything, but Vittaotoe and Lamaison also only threw 3 more TD’s than Interceptions during their final year as well. That’s a lot of interceptions.  Then we also had losing seasons in both of those seasons as well.  So QB play is very important, but has also been tough at times to accomplish around here.  I can’t completely blame Dimel for not turning it around in such a short period of time.

[SisyphusMiner]

A couple random thoughts:

Our defense feels more improved because it has done enough to put us in position to win games.  The offense hasn't.

Why can't we get a decent QB?  We are UTEP.  Same reason Northeastern Southern Williams County Montana State School for the Blind can fill a roster with guys that can hit the three pointer and we can't.  We are UTEP.

At the beginning of the season we had a lot of conversation about how awfully horribly bad our receiving corp was.  Now we only talk about the QB.  Is it possible that some of our QB woes come down to having guys that run bad or just wrong routes and can't adjust to the ball in the air, etc?

1 win vs 0 wins is not 100% improvement, it's infinity improvement.

I also agree when your starter is ranked 108 out of 108 teams, hell put in any player that played QB in peewee.  What's the downside?  He might go 0-2 with 2 INTs?