Just A Few Stats

[kyyote]

After a week and a half, or two games for some and 1 game for others the numbers are starting to come in.  The first one that jumps off the page for me is #5 Hardison in passing yards.  He has had two games and some players have only played one, but Hardison just played the #9 ranked OU defense too.  Almost as impressive is Tyrice Knight's rank of 3rd in total tackles with 23.  But maybe it is the 2nd and 3rd ranked pair of receivers with UTEP on their jerseys, Reynaldo Flores and Tyrin Smith.  Also, Kobe Hylton is tied for 7th in tackles and Justin Prince is tied at 11th in tackles.  Yes, some of this is because we have played two games, but so have many other teams.   

Again, if we take away the 21 points in the first 5 minutes of the game when the Miners players seemed to have the best seats in the stadium to watch the Sooners play football, for the next 55 minutes of the game it was a 24 to 13 game against OU. 

Of course bullfrogs wouldn?t scrape their stomachs when they jump if they had wings. But they don?t.

Hell, I just found this;

Rushing                   28   259 Rushing Attempts   31   38 Yards per rush           0.9   6.8

Possession   38:33   21:27

Fewest penalties / gm
T49  UTEP
Fewest Pen Yards/gm
T51  UTEP

[Chanson]

I like your glass is half full approach. Stats are always fun, but wins are what count. As a matter of a fact, we can't get close on a score. Yes only 2 games have come & gone, but this Miner team should have been closer than 18pts against Mean Green. There is obviously still hope & the Miners better charge back & destroy NMSU.

[kyyote]

I always wear my orange-colored glasses.  Be true to your school just like you would to your girl-Beach Boys 65 or 66

I know that I am a homer and my posts reflect that.  But I also see what I see.  You are right of course about what counts and that is wins.  So far we don't have any.  But no one but Miners fans expected us to have any wins.  I agree that on paper(but without a game being played and we hadn't won the last 5 I think, so the paper was tissue paper thin) it should have been closer.  It had opened at UNT -5 and UTEP hope had lowered it to -1 to -1.5.  I think it was and eye opener for everyone.  The easy answer to why would be we weren't as good or they were better than everyone had figured.  After UNT's loss to SMU it might appear that is wasn't the second option.  But, the 50 minutes of OU made me wonder about the first option.  I had and have a sneaking suspicion that OU decided they could score at any time they wanted but to use the game to work on the running game.  But even if that was the case, any Miner team I can remember would have simply given up 10 td's and 6 or 7 hundred yards to OU's running game(I may be exaggerating just a little bit).  But we didn't and that has me very encouraged.  My faith is much stronger in OU's running game being strong and we actually slowed it way down than my faith in UNT being dominating over us but killed by SMU's being the more accurate of my two choices.  Let's face it, I could be wrong.  But then there's the whole message board without anything being said...and nobody wants to talk about how bad the team is as we have had years, maybe decades to beat that dead horse, so yeah I see it half full.  lol   

[Minermojo]

You're right about Ok wanting to try it's running game. Part of that also is that both coaches know each other and even if one team is miles away better that coach didn't want to embarrass his old friend.

But, I still give kudos to the Miners, they didn't give up and that's what I like about any football team that does that. We shall see how good or bad we are this saturday against Enemas U. I also wonder how many will attend. I think that there will be many Ugglie fans solely because they have a new emperor in Kills or whatever his name is. That will be fine for us as it will highlight attendance for those two home games.

[kyyote]

Well, I already had the pickaxe out so I did a little digging.  The defense, and in particular the line has played two tough games, against two physical teams.  We have a defensive lineman that is highly regarded and on watch lists.  After two games he has zero solo tackles and 1 assist.  Looking back on last season's individual game stats It seems to me that he feasted against perhaps some of the weaker opponents and maybe famined during some weeks.  Like when others are busy anchoring things, he is trying to break in.  Some teams are secure, and some will leave windows open.  I believe he may have stuffed himself against the New Mexico teams last year.

[SisyphusMiner]

This is what I've been afraid was the case.  The bottom tier CUSA teams are so unbelievably bad that good FCS teams kick their ass.  We can thank Dimel that we're not that anymore.  But we're not good.  We can't seem to beat good CUSA teams.   We beat bad teams and that's an improvement.

I imagine we'll look like all-Americans against one of the 5 worst teams in the country.  Good news is that five of our upcoming opponents are currently given power rankings of 120 or lower.   Eight are ranked lower than 100.  If we can't beat 6 of those, then we haven't made much progress.

The question to me is whether this is as good as it gets with Dimel.  I'm thinking maybe with him four wins is our floor and eight wins is our ceiling.  Maybe that's Dimels limits.  Maybe it's not his limits but the limits of an underfunded and undersupported UTEP athletics program.  Maybe Wilson and Senter don't really give a shit if we ever win a conference championship.  I don't know.

[kyyote]

Sooo...  let me put this in a slightly more orange light.  We have gotten good enough to not be in the top ten worst.  Barely maybe.  Like you said, that's an improvement.  Here's the thing, winning 4-8 games a season attracts players much better than winning one or two, and that eventually is the rising water level that lifts the boat.  Those wins are money wins and wins to show powerful people making decisions that impact the program.  The momentum and the few rungs climbed are positives in a rapidly contracting college football economy.

[SisyphusMiner]

I'd like to believe that, but then why wasn't Price able to capitalize?

[Chanson]

Sooo...  let me put this in a slightly more orange light.  We have gotten good enough to not be in the top ten worst.  Barely maybe.  Like you said, that's an improvement.  Here's the thing, winning 4-8 games a season attracts players much better than winning one or two, and that eventually is the rising water level that lifts the boat.  Those wins are money wins and wins to show powerful people making decisions that impact the program.  The momentum and the few rungs climbed are positives in a rapidly contracting college football economy.

True dat. Sooo...we need to fstart reaking winning.

[kyyote]

I am not sure that he failed.  Price went 8-4 in his first year.  That was in the WAC.  The next year he was 8/4 but that was in C-USA.  Remember that C-USA was the AAC teams he did it against.  We were beating UH and SMU teams and played Colorado in a bowl game.
The next year he went 5/7.  But you have to remember the level of competition was the AAC.  In his last season his Out of Conference teams played included OU, Ole Miss, and Wisconsin.  We lost to OU24-7, Ole Miss28-10, and Wisconsin 37-26.  What do you think the scores on those games would be today?  In his nine seasons he won 42% of his games and after him the competition level went down for Kugler and Dimel.  Then, because he wasn't winning enough, he was fired.  Kugler won 29% of his games against much weaker competition and Dimel is at 27% for his five seasons.  Price played the top teams in an old C-USA when it was basically the AAC and was competitive.  I think people have a tendency to forget the level of competition.  Ask yourself what Kugler and Dimel's records would be if they were playing an ECU, USF, SMU, Houston and Cincy C-USA instead of ODU, Charlotte, FIU, FAU, and Middle Tenn.  So, it is hard to tell, but I would say that the level of competition went down, steadily and so did the wins.  He was winning 40+% of his games against tougher competition, while Kugler and Dimel won 28% of their games against much less stiff competition.

All of that, and I didn't even get into the talent of the players attracted to the program.  Price had McDonalds All-Americans coming to play in El Paso.  Now, if we find a player that can catch a football he leaves.  But that has a lot to do with the offense Price was running.  It was based on skill players, and it wasn't built on a strong foundation.  It is an offense for those who can't build a powerhouse solid team.  Eventually, building a solid foundation is better, but only if you can do it.  Maybe Dimel's 10 year plan will work or maybe it will be working at it still when the train pulls out of the station without UTEP on board.  The world isn't waiting for us to get it built.  We have filtered ourselves to the very bottom of conference barrels.

[SisyphusMiner]

I guess I should have expanded on what i was trying to say.

Price was light years better than Kug or Dimel.  But he wasn't able to capitalize on his early successes.
 
His first two seasons he had winning teams.  After that not another winning season.  He had two consecutive bowl years his first two seasons, and a ton of talent at the skilled positions and couldn't build on that momentum to make us a consistent winner.  And he was a better coach with a better history than Dimel, and playing in a better conference.

He *should* have been able to build a consistent winner, bowl eligible most years and occasionally challenging for the conference title.

Maybe it isn't the coach, maybe it's the university and its leadership and their attitudes and expectations

[kyyote]

I believe winning attracts winners.  Price had used the spread offense to overcome the power of USC, Washington, and the rest to shock the traditional powers and make an enormous splash that he rode to the Rose Bowl and the Bama job.  At Bama he would have been able to take the existing power foundation and become the establishment type of offense of the USC and Washington types and throw in a little of his spread not from necessity as it was forced on less powerful teams, but from added wrinkles that power teams can afford to try.

Here, it was back to starting from square one.  His fame AND the lure of the spread for stars with too few openings for starters looking to be stars in his star skill player oriented offense.  His fame dimmed after a few years, for a number of reasons, including success of those already here.  Many stars came and found they couldn't take jobs from already established stars.  Word gets out that some of those skill positions were going to be locked up for two and three years.  Meanwhile, if we only measure the ability to attract players using wins and losses without looking at the elevation of the competition we aren't making a fair evaluation of the ability to attract or not.   

That is one reason I have thought that we were taking our lumps building the solid power that sustains rather than the try and reload every year.  One of the weaknesses of the spread is the inability of the defense to get the rest it needs.  It is also why it tends to have diminishing returns, too.  Other teams adjust their defensive balance to match the lessened threat of the run.  I think if you looked at it since it grew in popularity you would find that the same dynamic that locked in the skill players at UTEP level is very different from the skill players at the next level.  The backups at UT can go to any lower level school they want to and likely start.  Lorne Sam and at least two or three others thought they could come in and do just that.  Turns out that Jordan Palmer and Trevor Vittatoe were pretty damned good.

Or maybe it is the defense, what the spread does to it that eventually catches up.  lol