Any season of Mike Price football was more exciting and successful than anything else UTEP had ever seen. The Jrz Cartel War hurt recruiting and success dwindled. Patterson was the hire after Price, Stull blew it with Kugler. That's the point of no return. That's when shit really hit the fan, the hiring of Sean Kugler.
You sure about that?
4-8 is a winning season at UTEP….would die for a 4-8 season this year
A quarter of the old CUSA was the teams that ditched UTEP in the WAC. 🤣🤣🤣
You have 3 years in there (5-7), 1 win away from bowl eligibility. You have 2 (4-8) 2 wins away. Find me a better stretch in UTEP history? Add his first years, duplicate his tenure hypothetically, and you can call it the Golden Era.
7 straight losing seasons was too much. But the one thing Price gave us was hope. Even though UTEP had AWFUL defenses you knew those UTEP teams were going to throw the ball and try to score points. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that era was the most fun I’ve had at UTEP football games. There was a reason we were always near the top in attendance even though we were losing, and it was because we played a fan friendly brand of football.
Again, NIU and/or Toledo are rumored to be football only invites. That does not affect what we're hoping/wishing/begging to do here. They could invite the entire MAC football only and the MWC would still need 2 full time members.
I’m not going to go down this rabbit hole, but in 2006, he had the Miners at 4-2 and then lost 5 out of the last 6. Miners were 5-5, then he lost on the road to Marshall. Final game of the season, they were blown out at home against 1-10 Memphis, who was 0-7 in CUSA at the time. So spare me the 1 win away from bowl eligibility crap. 5-7 is a loser year, end up in the same place as 2-10.
Yes, the move has to be approved, but it’s a formality. There is no hold up as far as that’s concerned.
Yes, there was hope then, but look where it got us. He should have been fired after 2008.
Problem is: when you look at who Stull succeeded him I would have gladly taken 4-5 win seasons instead of watching Kugler destroy an already awful football program.
Here’s the thing though, even Kugler went bowling and had a winning record in CUSA play 1 year. Lots of other UTEP coaches weren’t able to do that.
Also have to remember that at the time, CUSA still included Memphis, Houston, SMU, and UCF. It was a good league and higher profile than what it’s turned into.
Spare me the even Kuglar crap. Not going down this rabbit hole, but he had Aaron Jones. I could have taken that team bowling.
