UTEP has not had 300 yards of offense against any FBS/D1 opponent this season(only against Houston Baptist). We are a bad offense and as previously documented, our OC has a terrible history with very little success on his resume. Dimel must make a change here, but Dimel also needs to be willing to allow a new OC the freedom to implement a different offense. If Dimel doesn’t recognize this, then Senter or a higher-up needs to step to make this clear.
I feel that I have supported Dimel well so far, but I think I am now going to step back for a while. The dealbreaker for me is the overall undisciplined play of our team which is a direct reflection of bad coaching. The sad fact that I realized watching us play tonight, is that Dimel has no control over his team and that is evident when you watch us play. ALL NIGHT LONG, I watched our guys act tough after the whistle, hitting late, pushing back late, etc. We don’t know how to just walk away after the whistle. Our knuckleheaded behavior after the whistle happened at least once every possession(both offense and defense). If we had a different officiating crew, we could have easily ended up with at least 4 or 5 more unsportsmanlike penalties because of our late hits. Our guys just don’t care and Dimel has no control over his team or else it would have improved after already hurting us so much this season. Last week, we get a big turnover and Caldwell acts like a moron and gets 15 yard penalty after the play. I then see Caldwell having to be separated by the officials 2 or 3 more times in that same game. Tonight, we stop UTSA and get the ball back at mid-field, except Pablo Ruiz goes and hits a guy long after the play is over, so instead we start at our own 30 instead of our own 45. After that punt play, I watched Dimel on the sideline and for some unknown reason, he goes and screams at #15, who then made a gesture like “what did I do?” And #15 was right, because it was #27 who had committed the penalty, not him. That was also the only time that I ever saw Dimel say anything to any player who was hitting, jawing, pushing late and Dimel only comments were to the wrong guy.
Check this out for a stat: UTEP had two offensive drives in the 4th quarter tonight when this game was still very close, on the first drive we got 20 yards in penalties which killed the drive. Then on the very next drive, we got 25 yards in offensive penalties which of course killed that drive as well. I can’t continue to support this type of poorly coached and undisciplined football. This has nothing to do with effort or talent, this has to do a coach who can’t control his team. This also has to do with the issue of this happening game after game and continuing series after series(even when it is not being called). I swear we have a team full of tough guys “after” the whistle blows.
Another continuous issue is our poor coaching and poor game management at the end of the first half. Last week we had two delay of game penalties when simply lining up for a field goal, then also gave up 3 points despite kicking off with only 15 seconds left. Tonight we threw deep, plus got a defense penalty which gave us a first down inside the 20 with 26 seconds left in the half. We had one time out. They moved the ball, enforced the penalty and lined everybody up, then started the clock. Locksley lined up and started to audible as the clock kept ticking down. I was screaming “the clock is running” and I would look at Dimel on the sideline and then back the Kai and then back to Dimel and neither guy appeared to know the simple fact that the clock was running and it took us 11 seconds before we snapped the ball. Because of terrible management and poor coaching, we only ran two plays and the clock ran out, so we ended up having to kick a field goal on 3rd down and we went into half-time with 1 unused timeout. I honestly expected better from experienced coaches, but like I mentioned above, my big issue here is not when it happens in one game, but when it consistently happens multiples times a season.
So we have an offense that consistently can not produce 300 yards of offense. We have bad end of half game management in 3 different games this year. We have undisciplined penalties in every game this year. That type of consistency is not related to an isolated incident or game, it is consistent and related to a poorly coached program.
Two side notes:
- It looked liked we had close to 10 recruits and their parents at the game tonight. They enjoyed when Hughes ran over the UTSA player, but after that, I didn’t get the feeling that they enjoyed themselves very much.
- Maybe my only hope for Dimel that came from tonight, was in the 2nd quarter, when my wife made a comment to me that the UTSA players looked much bigger than our players. If the line of scrimmage size difference is that noticeable to an average fan, then maybe our issues right now do have mostly to do with the players that Dimel took over and Dimel’s plans can work once he upgrades our talent. That doesn’t answer my concerns above, but it was just something that was noticeable....and it was also verified by their RB rushing behind that line for a new school record against us tonight.
- On one punt in the 4th quarter, I saw it hit the back leg of a UTSA player, then two of our players missed getting it, then the UTSA player got on it. I believe that the officials missed the ball hitting the UTSA player first and only saw it when the UTEP players touched it. UTEP lost about 15 yards of field position due to that missed call. UTSA got a long field goal on that drive, so the 15 yards were important, yet our coaching staff did not contest the explanation. I sit behind our bench and wonder how I could see this, yet our coaches can’t?
I feel that I have supported Dimel well so far, but I think I am now going to step back for a while. The dealbreaker for me is the overall undisciplined play of our team which is a direct reflection of bad coaching. The sad fact that I realized watching us play tonight, is that Dimel has no control over his team and that is evident when you watch us play. ALL NIGHT LONG, I watched our guys act tough after the whistle, hitting late, pushing back late, etc. We don’t know how to just walk away after the whistle. Our knuckleheaded behavior after the whistle happened at least once every possession(both offense and defense). If we had a different officiating crew, we could have easily ended up with at least 4 or 5 more unsportsmanlike penalties because of our late hits. Our guys just don’t care and Dimel has no control over his team or else it would have improved after already hurting us so much this season. Last week, we get a big turnover and Caldwell acts like a moron and gets 15 yard penalty after the play. I then see Caldwell having to be separated by the officials 2 or 3 more times in that same game. Tonight, we stop UTSA and get the ball back at mid-field, except Pablo Ruiz goes and hits a guy long after the play is over, so instead we start at our own 30 instead of our own 45. After that punt play, I watched Dimel on the sideline and for some unknown reason, he goes and screams at #15, who then made a gesture like “what did I do?” And #15 was right, because it was #27 who had committed the penalty, not him. That was also the only time that I ever saw Dimel say anything to any player who was hitting, jawing, pushing late and Dimel only comments were to the wrong guy.
Check this out for a stat: UTEP had two offensive drives in the 4th quarter tonight when this game was still very close, on the first drive we got 20 yards in penalties which killed the drive. Then on the very next drive, we got 25 yards in offensive penalties which of course killed that drive as well. I can’t continue to support this type of poorly coached and undisciplined football. This has nothing to do with effort or talent, this has to do a coach who can’t control his team. This also has to do with the issue of this happening game after game and continuing series after series(even when it is not being called). I swear we have a team full of tough guys “after” the whistle blows.
Another continuous issue is our poor coaching and poor game management at the end of the first half. Last week we had two delay of game penalties when simply lining up for a field goal, then also gave up 3 points despite kicking off with only 15 seconds left. Tonight we threw deep, plus got a defense penalty which gave us a first down inside the 20 with 26 seconds left in the half. We had one time out. They moved the ball, enforced the penalty and lined everybody up, then started the clock. Locksley lined up and started to audible as the clock kept ticking down. I was screaming “the clock is running” and I would look at Dimel on the sideline and then back the Kai and then back to Dimel and neither guy appeared to know the simple fact that the clock was running and it took us 11 seconds before we snapped the ball. Because of terrible management and poor coaching, we only ran two plays and the clock ran out, so we ended up having to kick a field goal on 3rd down and we went into half-time with 1 unused timeout. I honestly expected better from experienced coaches, but like I mentioned above, my big issue here is not when it happens in one game, but when it consistently happens multiples times a season.
So we have an offense that consistently can not produce 300 yards of offense. We have bad end of half game management in 3 different games this year. We have undisciplined penalties in every game this year. That type of consistency is not related to an isolated incident or game, it is consistent and related to a poorly coached program.
Two side notes:
- It looked liked we had close to 10 recruits and their parents at the game tonight. They enjoyed when Hughes ran over the UTSA player, but after that, I didn’t get the feeling that they enjoyed themselves very much.
- Maybe my only hope for Dimel that came from tonight, was in the 2nd quarter, when my wife made a comment to me that the UTSA players looked much bigger than our players. If the line of scrimmage size difference is that noticeable to an average fan, then maybe our issues right now do have mostly to do with the players that Dimel took over and Dimel’s plans can work once he upgrades our talent. That doesn’t answer my concerns above, but it was just something that was noticeable....and it was also verified by their RB rushing behind that line for a new school record against us tonight.
- On one punt in the 4th quarter, I saw it hit the back leg of a UTSA player, then two of our players missed getting it, then the UTSA player got on it. I believe that the officials missed the ball hitting the UTSA player first and only saw it when the UTEP players touched it. UTEP lost about 15 yards of field position due to that missed call. UTSA got a long field goal on that drive, so the 15 yards were important, yet our coaching staff did not contest the explanation. I sit behind our bench and wonder how I could see this, yet our coaches can’t?
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