A few Random Thoughts.

[UTEPDefense]

To start, I am disapointed and even though I stated that we would have a slow start to this season, this is even more rough than what I had expected.

- I still like Kugler and the overall way that he is building our Program.

- Leftwich has actually not played bad. So this concerns me about how low his Productivity Ceiling might be at the D1 level. If he is currently playing above average in combination with Aaron Jones playing outstanding, yet we are still producing so little, what are the best results that we can hope for with him?

- I have mentioned (like almost everybody else) my concern about Higgins, yet I have reserved more of a wait and see approach. My thoughts are now adjusting towards the full understanding that a change needs to be made with him. I am all for running the football 60%-70% of the time, but 95% of your passes can not be less than 10 yards. Based on these two combinations, then a defense can place all 11 defenders inside of 10 yards and they can defend about 97% of our offense.

- Maybe it just has to do with the time of the game when he plays, but why does Metz look downfield more often than Leftwich when he passes? Why does Metz appear to have so much potential, yet he is our 3rd string QB. Why not build our Program around a Freshman Metz or Johnson who have much higher ceilings?

- Our offensive line struggled with blocking backside when we pulled linemen. Against Arkansas, I noticed certain schemes where we left our FB to block these unblocked DL(this had mixed results), yet Texas Tech shot these gaps so fast for numerous big plays in our backfield. We need to work on sealing our backside during these blocking schemes or else, let's just base up more since we have such a big and experienced O-line.

- Can we give Kavika Johnson just one opportunity to run our normal offense when he is in the game? I like the Johnson Wildcat Offense, but let's now give the kid at least a chance to play as a normal QB.

- I know that we blitz so much and this is the root of our problem, but on defense we must get better at covering the RB out of the backfield. Texas Tech's first 2 Touchdown passes were to RB's who were completely uncovered coming out of the backfield.

- Can our Coaches please teach Nick Usher to look for backside flow. Last week, twice Arkansas ran an underneath TE route(where the TE runs underneath the line of scrimmage) and Usher stood there as the TE ran past him and went for a wide open uncovered reception. Yesterday, Texas Tech ran a reverse and Usher collapsed down with a half-ass effort and was completely non-chalant about the reverse coming to his side. With any common sense/awareness and he would have been able to defend that. We can all live with mistakes, but not the same mistakes by the same player game after game, this has to be worked on with his Position Coach/DC.

- Aaron Jones now has 3 weeks to heal for UTSA. This will now force our offense to get production from other people. The question right now, is that are the players the one to blame?, or is the ineffective offensive scheme the biggest issue here(again I am all for running the ball 60%-70% philosphy, but it has be done differently than how Higgins is currently trying to execute it).

- Maybe the Texas Tech game will be last year's Louisiana Tech Game, where our season turned around after that road embarrasment. Wishful thinking.

- The Miners have to win the next 3 games, or else we will have a losing season.

 

[Tribalwarriorx]

... The question right now, is that are the players the one to blame?, or is the ineffective offense scheme the biggest issue here(again I am all for running the ball 60%-70% philosphy, but it has be done differently than how Higgins is currently trying to execute it).

It's a scheme thing.

 

[allminer]

Good evaluate, the third bullet on Higgins offense is spot on. Must be nice to only have to defend 10 yards.

 

[jq_miner]

Reading Kuglers quotes from his presser, he pretty much admits that the offense that we've seen so far, the overuse of AJ, lack of down field passing was planned and executed as planned. This s is unacceptable! I dig what he is doing discipline wise and building up both online and dline, but we will never get over the hump if Coach stays stubborn and sticks to this cloud of dust offense. WE ARE NOT A BIG10 TEAM! You would think coming from that Boise staff that Kugs would incorporate some downfield passing and a little flash.

Here are two quotes from the presser:

(How much does the game plan change without Aaron Jones?)
“It does have to change. If you’ve got a racehorse, you’re going to ride that racehorse, you know what I mean? Aaron Jones is a special back, much like their back. They’ve built a lot of things around their back. We had a special player and we built quite a bit of our offense around that player. Now we don’t have that player. It’s going to have to be more of a team mentality when it comes to running the ball. We may have to throw the ball more than we normally do, which we are confident about with some of the weapons. As I mentioned, hopefully we get Terry Juniel back this week as well. We’re probably going to have to change the makeup of what we are to overcome the loss of that player. From a coaching standpoint, I’ll do whatever it takes as a team to get us in the best position to win games. You’ll see that on Saturday as far as what those adjustments will be.”

(On the wide receivers to date)
“We haven’t had the production out of that group. I’m not lacking confidence in that group. Just by schematics, the first two games trying to maintain possession of the clock, [we used] more of a short passing game. That will have to change. I feel very confident that those guys are capable. We will have to get the ball in our receivers’ hands more for us to be successful on offense.”

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! THROW THE BALL DOWNFIELD! WE'VE SEEN THIS SAME DAMN OFFENSE FOR THREE YEARS NOW! THROW THE DAMN BALL!
Let's see if they open it up, STOP BEING STUBBORN COACH AND SLING IT!

 

[Epsilon00]

Are you serious???? Kugler's plan was to not showcase our downfield passing against Arkansas and Tech. But he wants to work the hell out of our best player those two games and get him injured cause he was physically part of 90% of our offense in those games. He should have cut down Jones plays in those 2 games to rest him for the rest of the season, and practiced the downfield passing against an SEC defense and Texas Tech.

 

[MinerInWisconsin]

With Simpson now listed on the depth chart as backup he must be mostly healed from the sprain. I expect to see him in action since coach admits the offense must expand past just the run.

 

[Tribalwarriorx]

With Simpson now listed on the depth chart as backup he must be mostly healed from the sprain. I expect to see him in action since coach admits the offense must expand past just the run.

That's a good sign. I'm guessing that means Left is on that Bill O'Brien short type of leash.

 

[Minerforlife]

I dont think Leftwich is on short leash. At the presser Kugler said he was very happy with Leftwich's play. The interesting thing about the depth chart is that Simpson and Metz are listed as co-backups. It seems like a demotion for Simpson.

 

[Tribalwarriorx]

Reading Kuglers quotes from his presser, he pretty much admits that the offense that we've seen so far, the overuse of AJ, lack of down field passing was planned and executed as planned...

Here are two quotes from the presser:

(How much does the game plan change without Aaron Jones?)
“It does have to change...Now we don’t have that player. It’s going to have to be more of a team mentality when it comes to running the ball. We may have to throw the ball more than we normally do, which we are confident about with some of the weapons...”

(On the wide receivers to date)
“We haven’t had the production out of that group. I’m not lacking confidence in that group. Just by schematics, the first two games trying to maintain possession of the clock, [we used] more of a short passing game...”

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! THROW THE BALL DOWNFIELD! WE'VE SEEN THIS SAME DAMN OFFENSE FOR THREE YEARS NOW! THROW THE DAMN BALL!
Let's see if they open it up, STOP BEING STUBBORN COACH AND SLING IT!

Couple of keys from that presser.

"We may have to throw the ball more than we normally do..."
UTEP doesn't throw it nearly enough for the passing attack to be considered "an attack."

"We haven't had the production out of that group."
Not their fault. It was by design. I'm concerned the short passing game consisted of nothing but check downs. That's not a passing game.

Here's the problem with that plan.

These games were on national tv. To raise the program's profile, you have to play big schools. But in playing those schools, you have to be competitive. UTEP wasn't. Not once, but twice. It's hard to sell your program on a national scale when in the two games broadcast nation wide, you got hammered 122 points to 30. That doesn't build confidence in your program, it doesn't inspire the fan base, and certainly doesn't get an 18 year old kid excited to play for the Miners. Not QBs and certainly not WRs. Two lynch pins of any offense.

 

[FeralFelidae]

Are you serious???? Kugler's plan was to not showcase our downfield passing against Arkansas and Tech. But he wants to work the hell out of our best player those two games and get him injured cause he was physically part of 90% of our offense in those games. He should have cut down Jones plays in those 2 games to rest him for the rest of the season, and practiced the downfield passing against an SEC defense and Texas Tech.

If Kugler had done that, you and others would have been all over him for not trying to win against the Power 5 team.

 

[shyminer81]

it sure looked like he was just there for the paycheck... Sorry, but they did not compete with Tech or Ark.

 

[UTEPDefense]

- Maybe it just has to do with the time of the game when he plays, but why does Metz look downfield more often than Leftwich when he passes? Why does Metz appear to have so much potential, yet he is our 3rd string QB. Why not build our Program around a Freshman Metz or Johnson who have much higher ceilings?

I wasn't saying anything revolutionary, but I did make the above accurate comments about Metz last week. I have been a Kugler supporter, but if he goes away from Metz at this moment, then that would be discouraging to me.

Everything works out perfectly to make a QB change at this moment, with a game against Incarnate Word providing a great opportunity for Metz to make his first Start! Having an El Pasoan Metz making his First Start might also rally a few more fans to our first home game, compared to pissing most(if not all) people off by starting Leftwich.

 

[artistarts28]

I dont think Leftwich is on short leash. At the presser Kugler said he was very happy with Leftwich's play. The interesting thing about the depth chart is that Simpson and Metz are listed as co-backups. It seems like a demotion for Simpson.

I don't see anything wrong with a coach not putting a player down. You never know when you will have to count on that player again. In football nothing is guaranteed

 

[Miners Fight]

when I haven't had the chance to see the Miners game score on ESPN I don't bother to look it up online. I just come here and read the remarks. by reading the first post in this thread you would have thought that we lost to NMSU. geez, lighten up. we won the game, didn't we? we won without the best running back in the conference, didn't we? did anyone seriously think we were going to beat Arkansas and Texas Tech?? based on what I saw we're lucky we didn't lose both games 100-0! we aren't competitive with those kinds of programs. but we can be competitive in our conference and have a shot at a bowl game. what were you people expecting??

 

[homeskillet75]

To be fair, the first post is in reference to the Texas Tech game, not the NMSU game. It was written on the 13th.

 

[Tribalwarriorx]

when I haven't had the chance to see the Miners game score on ESPN I don't bother to look it up online. I just come here and read the remarks. by reading the first post in this thread you would have thought that we lost to NMSU. geez, lighten up. we won the game, didn't we? we won without the best running back in the conference, didn't we? did anyone seriously think we were going to beat Arkansas and Texas Tech?? based on what I saw we're lucky we didn't lose both games 100-0! we aren't competitive with those kinds of programs. but we can be competitive in our conference and have a shot at a bowl game. what were you people expecting??

Looking back on who Arkansas has lost to, I'm 50-50 that had our defense been able to stop a nose bleed, and the offense actually threw the ball, with Metz, UTEP had a viable chance. The other half, them losing to Tech pretty much is what it is.