Incredible performance by the Defense. They play with a chip on their shoulder and are just freaking dominant. Absolutely shut down a very effective offense as proven against ranked teams. This may be the best D I have ever seen in a Miner uniform. They will keep them in games and give an opportunity to win every game. Think about this -- the last two games, the opposing offense scored a total of 16 points. Our defense scored 11.
Dimel has absolutely done the job of turning things around. Given the state of talent at UTEP when he took over vs now is incredible. Kudos to him.
Our offense scored 17 points, had 385 yards of offense, and 37 minutes TOP. I have no problem with going to the ball control offense when we are up, given the strength of the D. My statement that our offense isn't very good still stands. A good offense doesn't turn it over 4 times, and have that many opportunities to come away with at least 3 and end up with nothing. I do still criticize Dimel a bit for play calling. I don't want to be more aggressive in these situations, but ball control can involve more than running between the tackles. That screen to the RB over the middle was one example. You can chew up more clock if you make first downs. No matter how good the D is, you can't put them in a hole that many times and expect them to save your bacon every time. Boise was an example of this.
Special teams looked a lot better this time.
At this point I think every game is winnable, with UNT and Rice being "should win" games. It wouldn't surprise me at all to knock off one or more of UAB, FAU, and UTSA. They are legit teams, but I'm not sure at this point that any of them are dominatingly better than us. And with a solid D, they might give us our best chance at a bowl win we have had.
