Color me shocked

[Alaska Miner]

Sitting here in the stands with my Dad at halftime, and neither one of us can believe how good the Miners look! 😳
10-3 UTEP! Should?ve been 17-3, had that TD not been called back.
It appears they have FINALLY learned how to use their running backs! Both of them look good tonight.
And the defense is playing LIGHTS OUT!
Let?s hope this continues in the 2nd half.🤞
Go MINERS!!!😎🤙

[orange-oink]

be patient,  the second half collapse is on its way

[Alaska Miner]

Yeah, probably? but still, it?s 13-10 UTEP with 3 mins left in the 3rd qtr.

[Minermojo]

You and me too. Who would have thought the Miners would be 20-10 in the third quarter. I sure hope the Miners don't resort to their old selves. Too bad Chans didn't take me up on that kiss his feet comment by me. I sure wish the Miners can win, one more quarter to go.

Go Miners make me into a fool for predicting that you'd lose. I can eat crow and if you win I'd do it very gladly. PS. I'm glad that I've learned how to cook. LOL

[orange-oink]

make me eat my words, miners

[kyyote]

It was the best thing I have seen in a long time.  We played like a normal team.  A pretty good one.  Very little dumb stuff. What made it so beautiful was that UTEP flat out bullied Boise State.

[Minermojo]

My eight year old grandson hit another over the fence homerun today but I think this Miner win is making me prouder. This is the first time we have beaten this team and it's about time. What have we been saying all this time, RUN THE BALL DISMAL. He must have read this site.

Go Miners, I'm proud of your effort and win. Keep it up! Or PICKS UP!

[MinerInWisconsin]

Never so happy to be wrong.

UTEP 27 Boise St 10. Holy crap.

[Chanson]

I was actually at the game from bell to bell. What a dominating game from the Miners. Where was that when we played UNT & UNM? incredible

[Austintacious]

Z wins the opt

[SisyphusMiner]

What the heck?
I didn't watch the game but I've read through the comments and looked at the box score.

Obviously the defense was outstanding, Hardison played great, and we had an effective run game.
Clearly play calling and execution both improved.  Sounds like the lines dominated in the way we thought they could against CUSA competition and the NM schools

In a lot of ways this makes the UNT and NM games even more frustrating as we could be sitting at 4-1 right now.


For me this counts as one of my "keep Dimel" statistics.  This is a quality win against a quality program that might be down but is the kind of team we have just been unable to beat for a very long time.


The question is, can we play at this caliber the rest of the season?

Those of you at the game, how much was effort and how much was coaching?  I think it's very clear over the course of the Dimel era that the coaching staff has lost many a winnable game.  It's also clear that in plenty of games our players couldn't get out of their own way.

I think going into the season we've all felt that we had the players to compete nearly every week, with varying opinions on how that would play out.
So all this leads to some questions...

Have the offensive and defensive lines simply had lack of motivation / aggression and found it in this game?  Hard to believe they suddenly learned their assignments, so seems effort related.

Hardison -- We've all known he's inconsistent, and I don't think that's effort.  I think playcalling makes a big difference for him

RBs -- Only as good as our O line.  No Barry Sanders here.

Coaching -- Has Dimel & co basically been mailing it in when it comes to gameplanning?  Did they just get lucky this week?  Can they repeat?


If we come off this win and play Charlotte like we played the NM schools I'm back on the fire Dimel train.  We still have a shot at redeeming this season, but if the staff can't build on this win they aren't worth keeping.

[kyyote]

Watching from home, this may have been my favorite game to watch of all time.  Price teams were able to outscore some teams for some big wins, but this was just UTEP bullying a good Boise State team on both sides of the line, reducing Boise State to being the feeble looking team looking to survive instead of it always being us. 

Funny, because it started like we were running and going nowhere.  Punted and shanked punt that left us looking like we do.  Boise was had the ball on our side and looked like they would almost instantly take a touchdown lead.  But lo and behold, the defense was on their ass and after I think 11 plays, they were able to get 38 yards to kick a field goal.  The UTEP defense had held the Broncos and showed what was to come.  The Broncos were already scratching their heads.

Then the Miners offense went t work.  This time when the Miners began to run the offensive line started pushing.  Not a ton, but still, winning.  A pass here and there kept them off balance.  And what I think may have made all of the difference, was the Hardison keepers in the game, which came rarely, but shockingly effective to keep drives alive.  Somewhere about then the Boise defensive will was starting to break.  Then the defense picked it up even more and the domination was on like donkey kong.  We were the Boise State beating up the UTEP only it had reversed.  We were Ralphie beating the hell out of the freckled kid.  Boise left the Sun Bowl as the team worthy of our pity.  I'm telling you, it was delicious.

[Alaska Miner]

We were the Boise State beating up the UTEP only it had reversed.  We were Ralphie beating the hell out of the freckled kid.  Boise left the Sun Bowl as the team worthy of our pity.  I'm telling you, it was delicious.

Indeed it was delicious, Ky!  I woke up this morning, and I still can't believe I witnessed such a beatdown.  I thought going in that UTEP would be blown out, but if they pulled off a miracle, it would be very close.  Neither of those things happened.  UTEP DOMINATED! They clicked in all facets of the game, and never let up.  Just kept giving it to Boise State.
It was truly a thing of beauty!

[SisyphusMiner]

watched the highlights.  In addition to dominating the lines, I think I noticed something else.  I've complained about how long our run plays seem to take to develop.  By the time the ball is handed off everyone knows what's happening.  That wasn't the case against Boise.  It was quick and crisp.

BTW I love Flores at RB as a change of pace.

[kyyote]

I just had to add this little tidbit.  Boise is still ranked 74 on espn power index and that is higher than any cusa team except UAB.   Just in case we thought maybe that Boise is down this year.  It also says that UTEP can beat any of the CUSA teams except UAB when they play as they did against Boise.