Thoughts on La Tech game

[USAFminersfan]

watched the replay on ESPN+. Admittedly, this is the first UTEP fb game I’ve watched in some years, but I can away impressed.

First off, the fact that we had 4 TO’s, and only gave up 3pts…..I mean c’mon. That’s pretty crazy in any scenario, against any team.

This defense is something that I never thought I’d see at UTEP. I’m so used to canal sized running lanes, wide open receivers, and qb’s who have enough time to read all receiving routes 3x, before deciding on their favorite option. I saw very little of that in this game, which is still surprising to me.

TO’s however seemed to really kill a few promising drives. We could/should have put up a few more points. I believe we had 6 TO’s against Boise. Clean that up, and we have a chance for a pretty interesting season…

 

[MinerManiac]

watched the replay on ESPN+. Admittedly, this is the first UTEP fb game I’ve watched in some years, but I can away impressed.

First off, the fact that we had 4 TO’s, and only gave up 3pts…..I mean c’mon. That’s pretty crazy in any scenario, against any team.

This defense is something that I never thought I’d see at UTEP. I’m so used to canal sized running lanes, wide open receivers, and qb’s who have enough time to read all receiving routes 3x, before deciding on their favorite option. I saw very little of that in this game, which is still surprising to me.

TO’s however seemed to really kill a few promising drives. We could/should have put up a few more points. I believe we had 6 TO’s against Boise. Clean that up, and we have a chance for a pretty interesting season…

How can you forget about missed tackles? Anytime I watch a game where a team has a ton of missed tackles I say that they're tackling like UTEP. I'm so happy that I can't say that any more

 

[USAFminersfan]

How can you forget about missed tackles? Anytime I watch a game where a team has a ton of missed tackles I say that they're tackling like UTEP. I'm so happy that I can't say that any more

I honestly meant to put that in! It really has been one of our true hallmarks for…. well I don’t know how many years…

 

[UTEPDefense]

If you rewatch the game, go to Hardison's interception and look at how WIDE OPEN Deion Hankins was on that play. UTEP rarely puts it's RB's out on passing plays, so it was a nice simple wrinkle that worked. La. Tech didn't have it covered, unfortunately, Hardison just missed him.

Also on our final real drive of the game, UTEP ran a Tim Tebow type of pop pass with Brownholtz and we snuck our FB out for a pass. The FB was uncovered. Calvin faked the run and was going to pass it, but there was too much penetration, so he just played it safe and ate the ball.

Also, on the safety, we did not have a single defensive line starter on the field. Praise, Stewart, Moss, and Taylor were all out of the game and La. Tech still wasn't able to run it out of the end zone. The player for UTEP that made the biggest impact on that play was Jalen Rudolph, a freshman.