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Thoughts after the UTSA Game(Dimel is in trouble.)

UTEPDefense

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Oct 8, 2002
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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?
 
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Am I wrong or does it seem like Locksley always looks towards the sideline to get cues from the coaches pre snap? More often than not it looks like they’re signaling information in from the sideline till the last second. UTEP really is the antithesis of a no huddle offense and when it’s time for them to play with urgency it’s understandable why they can’t get it going in a rush when they need to.
 
By the way, when a player goes out of bounds the clock should stop, right? I mean the rules change so much I can't keep up. But I'm sure that rule is still the same. Wolf caught a pass went out of bounds with about 1:50 something left in the game and the clock kept running. (I know the NFL it only stops in the last five minutes of each half now.)

Also after a defensive penalty shouldn't the clock stop? It kept running at the end of the first half. Locksley thought what I was thinking, I guess we were wrong? That cost us at least 1 more play to try to score a TD instead of a field goal.

Oh since we're stuck with this staff for the foreseeable future can we recruit some OT's that don't have two left feet? Seems like 68 and 72 had a hard time moving their feet without bumblin' stumbulin' and ole. Also, recruit some QB's plural that can throw.
 
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No need for a long plethora of paralysis by anslysis, Canales' play calling sucks like a nasty taco from Del Taco.
 
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Am I wrong or does it seem like Locksley always looks towards the sideline to get cues from the coaches pre snap? More often than not it looks like they’re signaling information in from the sideline till the last second. UTEP really is the antithesis of a no huddle offense and when it’s time for them to play with urgency it’s understandable why they can’t get it going in a rush when they need to.

You are correct and Locksley is constantly changing the play to our O-Line with less than 10 seconds on the play clock. I wonder if such late play call changes and then rushing back to get the ball snapped is having some part in our bad blocking results on the o-line? Locksley is consistently making calls to the o-line with only 7 or 8 seconds left on the clock, that doesn’t leave much time for the O-line to process their duties before the ball is snapped. At the end of the day, the poor offensive results speak for themselves.
 
You are correct and Locksley is constantly changing the play to our O-Line with less than 10 seconds on the play clock. I wonder if such late play call changes and then rushing back to get the ball snapped is having some part in our bad blocking results on the o-line? Locksley is consistently making calls to the o-line with only 7 or 8 seconds left on the clock, that doesn’t leave much time for the O-line to process their duties before the ball is snapped. At the end of the day, the poor offensive results speak for themselves.
That's normal for the RPO. The GREAT WALL OF UTEP was a lie by Kugler and then propegated by Dimel.
 
I know the focus of this thread is on the incompetence of Canales/Dimel's offensive coaching, but I think DC Cox has been equally as bad. Yesterday, against a bad team playing against a backup QB who couldn't pass, was an unequivocal disaster. So many issues; including the lack of discipline, and inability to tackle. This all goes back to poor coaching and a lack of preparation. Just pathetic.
 
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I know the focus of this thread is on the incompetence of Canales/Dimel's offensive coaching, but I think DC Cox has been equally as bad. Yesterday, against a bad team playing against a backup QB who couldn't pass, was an unequivocal disaster. So many issues; including the lack of discipline, and inability to tackle. This all goes back to poor coaching and a lack of preparation. Just pathetic.

Amen.
 
Is Canales calling the plays?

If anybody had insight into that question, I thought it’d be you.

If he’s not calling the plays, I’m curious as to what he is being paid to do.

I know it’s not uncommon for an offensive oriented HC to assume play calling duties once his OC has proven himself incapable, but that also signifies the beginning of the end for that coach.

So my line of thinking is that he will be canned either for calling a shit show during games, or because he’s been relieved of those duties. Either way, I’d bet the farm he gone after this season.
 
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Canales was hired to be the first scapegoat when this terrible, boring, ineffective, losing offense requires its first sacrifice.
 
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Unfortunately, UTEP has had most of these type of hires in the 70's early 80's.

Tommy Hudspeth
Gil Bartosh
Bill Michael
Billy Alton
Bill Yung

They may have done well elsewhere; however, they laid an egg when they coached in El Paso. Even David Lee had a better record percentage wise than these guys.

List of UTEP Coaches
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UTEP_Miners_head_football_coaches
 
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Unfortunately, UTEP has had most of these type of hires in the 70's early 80's.

Tommy Hudspeth
Gil Bartosh
Bill Michael
Billy Alton
Bill Yung

They may have done well elsewhere; however, they laid an egg when they coached in El Paso. Even David Lee had a better record percentage wise than these guys.

List of UTEP Coaches
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UTEP_Miners_head_football_coaches
Ah, David Lee. Such found memories of him accidently giving film on game prep to Hawaii (teams share film, but Lee gave actual prep film).
 
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Did anyone else feel like The Miner D gave up in the 3rd when they let Narcisse scramble and tiptoe along the sideline to throw the TD pass? I can understand that no one wanted a penalty for a hot out of bounds but when you look at the replay from the end zone it almost seems like they all pulled up way too early. That to me is more egregious than the penalties.
 
Don’t know if they gave up, but the receiver was not in the end zone. Can’t tell if Narcisse was out of bounds.
 
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