I can take the fact that there is still a lack of talent and depth on both sides of the ball. But why after almost two years are The Miners still bumbling around sending packages in? Watch the defense during drives and you’ll see they get mixed up too and players are running on to the field and then off like kids who are lost.
Have you ever watched how long our O-linemen have to stay down in their stance before we snap the ball?, our O-linemen get to the line and they get down into their position, then our QB does a fake hard count, then all of our skill position players(including TE) stand up and look to the sideline to get the play, then our RB usually shifts, then we might send Cowing in motion on passing plays, and then we finally snap it.......all along, our O-linemen have been down in their stance this entire time for over 20 seconds every play before the ball is snapped. That has to have some negative impact on wearing our O-linemen down, getting tired, keeping them from firing out, etc. This also has to be a main reason why we have so many penalties....it’s hard for a big 300 pounder to stay down in their 3 point stance for 20 seconds every play before the ball is even snapped.
Another major issue that I see with Dimel’s offense, is that teams are still able to stack the box when we run. Most college offenses have very balanced formations, where it could be a run or pass, but UTEP almost never ran the ball today with a RB, when the Fullback was not in the game. The one time that we spread it out without a FB and handed it to Hughes, he had his best run of the day. The issue is we never went back to it and mostly ran him in only power formations with a FB, where NMSU was able to stack the box.
BTW, it was also just brilliant to watch a Dana Diml team get another personal foul penalty on a simple made field goal kick at the end of the first half. As a result, the penalty is marked off on the kick-off and NMSU gets the ball in good field position, then they are able to score before the end of the half. I have absolutely no respect for Dimel, because his team has done this all year and he has proven through an entire season that he can not control his team.
Finally, in the post game show, Teicher mentioned how the defensive coaches told him that they wanted to pressure the young NMSU QB this week. However, in actuality we did no such thing in this game and we continued to sit back in our 3 defensive linemen set except for some 3rd down passing situations. I wonder if our defensive coaches even know what a game plan for pressuring a QB really entails? Obviously, they don’t, because at the end of the day we gave up 44 points and got no turn overs against a NMSU team that has been turning the ball over all year....including last week against a FCS team.
