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UTEP vs. ULM Game Thoughts.

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I can’t believe that there is an 8 page thread about this ULM game and yet nobody has mentioned one of our top 3 individual performances: 1.) Hankins. 2). Hardison. 3). Keenan Stewart. Keenan Stewart was very good in this game and he is starting to become one of my favorite players to watch. His stats don’t jump out(as most DT’s usually don’t), but him and Moss are the biggest reason why ULM finished the game with only 7 TOTAL rushing yards for the entire game. Stewart is just a physical talent for our level of football who can play inside on running downs and DE in 3 man fronts and passing downs. Stewart had the QB pressure causing the first interception, he had a pass knockdown as a DE, and then he consistently set the line of scrimmage at the point of attack on running plays. I had to rewatch one running play because he was at the bottom of the pile and I didn’t remember him lining up on that side, so I rewatched it and he made the play as the opposite side DT. Just an impressive play. People that are 305 pounds are not supposed to move as fast as he does. He is another Sophomore JC player(like Hardison), who the coaching staff deserves a ton credit for going out and finding after only 1 year of JC. If he was a few inches taller or had gone back for one more year of JC, I would bet that he would have 15-20 FBS offers. Instead UTEP went and found him early. If you can not tell, I am becoming a big fan of watching Stewart play. UTEP has rarely had interior D-linemen with his ability over the years and I know that Praise(another Sophomore) is getting a lot of the local media, but I think that Stewart has the potential to maybe be a 2nd team all-conference type of guy before his career ends.

I was also impressed with Fryar’s blocking potential as a TE. He is another young JC guy(a redshirt freshman from NMMI). This was my first time watching him and I think he can be solid.

UTEP made an O-line adjustment in this game, by playing playing more Darta Lee at LT and mixing in Henry with Byers at RT.

I know that the staff likes Fields because of his good ball security and he is dependable with his responsibilities in the blocking schemes. I can respect that those are important aspects, especially when trying to grind out early wins, as we have done. I also don’t blame Josh, as there just have not been a lot of holes for him to run through this year. But it still almost feels like we are wasting a carry every time that he runs the ball. It just feels like we should be more aggressively developing a higher upside back like Awatt or Eldridge via more carries.

Grinding out wins against lower level teams is one thing and it is even fine when we are still building our program(as we currently are), but at some point we are going to want to take a next step and in order to do that some areas will need to be upgraded. It is never an easy thought to replace guys, but some areas that really could use an upgrade on offense are Fields carries at RB, Walter Dawn’s slot WR position and man if we were somehow able to find a true big transfer #1 WR, which would allow Cowing and Garrett to shift down to the #2 WR and #3 WR roles, then we could have a legitimate high end CUSA level passing game.

Our defense has given up less than 198 yards passing in 3 of our 4 games this year.

Dennis Barnes is another new JC guy, who got beat a couple of times(which will happen to every CB), but outside of those two plays, I thought he played very well also and is clearly improving.

After 1 1/2 games, I also don’t think that going from Van Hook to Theard has been much of a drop off.

We are getting so much quality early production out of our new guys, but one area where our new JC guys have not had an impact, are our 2 new JC ends(Williams and Taylor). It’s rare to be getting so much early success from JC guys(the old saying was that when you recruit a JC guy, you are only getting them for one year because they need a year to adjust). So is there hope that these two guys are going to turn the corner in the future, or do we need to actively work to upgrade them? At this point, I am leaning more towards needing to upgrade, with Taylor having the more shown potential of the two thus far.

I have mentioned this before, but when Deion Hankins was coming on the scene early in High School, people were mentioning that he was a SEC level RB and I thought that we would never get a chance to see him in a UTEP uniform. Now that he is playing for us and living up to what we hoped he could become, is a really nice feeling. Dimel and Staff have mostly improved our talent by doing a good job of evaluating under the radar guys, but Hankins is one of the few examples of where Dimel went out and actually beat people in recruiting.

Dimel has done a good job of getting the discipline and penalties under control compared to last year. That is even more impressive when considering all of the new players and the lack of normal practice time. We still had some of the same knuckleheaded play clock expiring issues yesterday in the second half, but overall, our discipline has been much improved this season.

The win and 3-1 record feels good and for the first time in a long time there is at least a positive buzz regarding us, even with some of the national media. Dave Campbell’s even has us ranked today as the #5 best team in Texas and even they mentioned in their podcast that they don’t think that has ever happened before. I don’t know if we are really a good team or not?, in fact I would lean towards not. Our best chance remaining looks to be the home game verses So. Miss. So I just hope that we can get through the bye week with no COVID outbreak and the La. Tech game without any injuries(as well as having at least a few things go well for us in that game, so that we can keep some of our confidence). What I do feel confident about saying, is that if a coach should be judged based on if his program is either improving or not improving, then I don’t think that there is any doubt that UTEP is a better team this year compared to last year.
 
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I can’t believe that there is an 8 page thread about this ULM game and yet nobody has mentioned one of our top 3 individual performances: 1.) Hankins. 2). Hardison. 3). Keenan Stewart. Keenan Stewart was very good in this game and he is starting to become one of my favorite players to watch. His stats don’t jump out(as most DT’s usually don’t), but him and Moss are the biggest reason why ULM finished the game with only 7 TOTAL rushing yards for the entire game. Stewart is just a physical talent for our level of football who can play inside on running downs and DE in 3 man fronts and passing downs. Stewart had the QB pressure causing the first interception, he had a pass knockdown as a DE, and then he consistently set the line of scrimmage at the point of attack on running plays. I had to rewatch one running play because he was at the bottom of the pile and I didn’t remember him lining up on that side, so I rewatched it and he made the play as the opposite side DT. Just an impressive play. People that are 305 pounds are not supposed to move as fast as he does. He is another Sophomore JC player(like Hardison), who the coaching staff deserves a ton credit for going out and finding after only 1 year of JC. If he was a few inches taller or had gone back for one more year of JC, I would bet that he would have 15-20 FBS offers. Instead UTEP went and found him early. If you can not tell, I am becoming a big fan of watching Stewart play. UTEP has rarely had interior D-linemen with his ability over the years and I know that Praise(another Sophomore) is getting a lot of the local media, but I think that Stewart has the potential to maybe be a 2nd team all-conference type of guy before his career ends.

I was also impressed with Fryar’s blocking potential as a TE. He is another young JC guy(a redshirt freshman from NMMI). This was my first time watching him and I think he can be solid.

UTEP made an O-line adjustment in this game, by playing playing more Darta Lee at LT and mixing in Henry with Byers at RT.

I know that the staff likes Fields because of his good ball security and he is dependable with his responsibilities in the blocking schemes. I can respect that those are important aspects, especially when trying to grind out early wins, as we have done. I also don’t blame Josh, as there just have not been a lot of holes for him to run through this year. But it still almost feels like we are wasting a carry every time that he runs the ball. It just feels like we should be more aggressively developing a higher upside back like Awatt or Eldridge via more carries.

Grinding out wins against lower level teams is one thing and it is even fine when we are still building our program(as we currently are), but at some point we are going to want to take a next step and in order to do that some areas will need to be upgraded. It is never an easy thought to replace guys, but some areas that really could use an upgrade on offense are Fields carries at RB, Walter Dawn’s slot WR position and man if we were somehow able to find a true big transfer #1 WR, which would allow Cowing and Garrett to shift down to the #2 WR and #3 WR roles, then we could have a legitimate high end CUSA level passing game.

Our defense has given up less than 198 yards passing in 3 of our 4 games this year.

Dennis Barnes is another new JC guy, who got beat a couple of times(which will happen to every CB), but outside of those two plays, I thought he played very well also and is clearly improving.

After 1 1/2 games, I also don’t think that going from Van Hook to Theard has been much of a drop off.

We are getting so much quality early production out of our new guys, but one area where our new JC guys have not had an impact, are our 2 new JC ends(Williams and Taylor). It’s rare to be getting so much early success from JC guys(the old saying was that when you recruit a JC guy, you are only getting them for one year because they need a year to adjust). So is there hope that these two guys are going to turn the corner in the future, or do we need to actively work to upgrade them? At this point, I am leaning more towards needing to upgrade, with Taylor having the more shown potential of the two thus far.

I have mentioned this before, but when Deion Hankins was coming on the scene early in High School, people were mentioning that he was a SEC level RB and I thought that we would never get a chance to see him in a UTEP uniform. Now that he is playing for us and living up to what we hoped he could become, is a really nice feeling. Dimel and Staff have mostly improved our talent by doing a good job of evaluating under the radar guys, but Hankins is one of the few examples of where Dimel went out and actually beat people in recruiting.

Dimel has done a good job of getting the discipline and penalties under control compared to last year. That is even more impressive when considering all of the new players and the lack of normal practice time. We still had some of the same knuckleheaded play clock expiring issues yesterday in the second half, but overall, our discipline has been much improved this season.

The win and 3-1 record feels good and for the first time in a long time there is at least a positive buzz regarding us, even with some of the national media. Dave Campbell’s even has us ranked today as the #5 best team in Texas and even they mentioned in their podcast that they don’t think that has ever happened before. I don’t know if we are really a good team or not?, in fact I would lean towards not. Our best chance remaining looks to be the home game verses So. Miss. So I just hope that we can get through the bye week with no COVID outbreak and the La. Tech game without any injuries(as well as having at least a few things go well for us in that game, so that we can keep some of our confidence). What I do feel confident about saying, is that if a coach should be judged based on if his program is either improving or not improving, then I don’t think that there is any doubt that UTEP is a better team this year compared to last year.

Good stuff, D.

Do you think Dimel was slow to tap JUCOS, and if so why, given Snyder’s success with them?
 
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Good stuff. After the first 3 games it was not really possible to say the team was improving. Two close wins vs fcs teams and a horrible thrashing at the hands of Texas were not encouraging. This dominating win over another fbs team was both surprising and encouraging. If key players remain healthy then the Miners could at least be competitive with several more teams and that's all I expect out of this season.
 
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I can’t believe that there is an 8 page thread about this ULM game and yet nobody has mentioned one of our top 3 individual performances: 1.) Hankins. 2). Hardison. 3). Keenan Stewart. Keenan Stewart was very good in this game and he is starting to become one of my favorite players to watch. His stats don’t jump out(as most DT’s usually don’t), but him and Moss are the biggest reason why ULM finished the game with only 7 TOTAL rushing yards for the entire game. Stewart is just a physical talent for our level of football who can play inside on running downs and DE in 3 man fronts and passing downs. Stewart had the QB pressure causing the first interception, he had a pass knockdown as a DE, and then he consistently set the line of scrimmage at the point of attack on running plays. I had to rewatch one running play because he was at the bottom of the pile and I didn’t remember him lining up on that side, so I rewatched it and he made the play as the opposite side DT. Just an impressive play. People that are 305 pounds are not supposed to move as fast as he does. He is another Sophomore JC player(like Hardison), who the coaching staff deserves a ton credit for going out and finding after only 1 year of JC. If he was a few inches taller or had gone back for one more year of JC, I would bet that he would have 15-20 FBS offers. Instead UTEP went and found him early. If you can not tell, I am becoming a big fan of watching Stewart play. UTEP has rarely had interior D-linemen with his ability over the years and I know that Praise(another Sophomore) is getting a lot of the local media, but I think that Stewart has the potential to maybe be a 2nd team all-conference type of guy before his career ends.

I was also impressed with Fryar’s blocking potential as a TE. He is another young JC guy(a redshirt freshman from NMMI). This was my first time watching him and I think he can be solid.

UTEP made an O-line adjustment in this game, by playing playing more Darta Lee at LT and mixing in Henry with Byers at RT.

I know that the staff likes Fields because of his good ball security and he is dependable with his responsibilities in the blocking schemes. I can respect that those are important aspects, especially when trying to grind out early wins, as we have done. I also don’t blame Josh, as there just have not been a lot of holes for him to run through this year. But it still almost feels like we are wasting a carry every time that he runs the ball. It just feels like we should be more aggressively developing a higher upside back like Awatt or Eldridge via more carries.

Grinding out wins against lower level teams is one thing and it is even fine when we are still building our program(as we currently are), but at some point we are going to want to take a next step and in order to do that some areas will need to be upgraded. It is never an easy thought to replace guys, but some areas that really could use an upgrade on offense are Fields carries at RB, Walter Dawn’s slot WR position and man if we were somehow able to find a true big transfer #1 WR, which would allow Cowing and Garrett to shift down to the #2 WR and #3 WR roles, then we could have a legitimate high end CUSA level passing game.

Our defense has given up less than 198 yards passing in 3 of our 4 games this year.

Dennis Barnes is another new JC guy, who got beat a couple of times(which will happen to every CB), but outside of those two plays, I thought he played very well also and is clearly improving.

After 1 1/2 games, I also don’t think that going from Van Hook to Theard has been much of a drop off.

We are getting so much quality early production out of our new guys, but one area where our new JC guys have not had an impact, are our 2 new JC ends(Williams and Taylor). It’s rare to be getting so much early success from JC guys(the old saying was that when you recruit a JC guy, you are only getting them for one year because they need a year to adjust). So is there hope that these two guys are going to turn the corner in the future, or do we need to actively work to upgrade them? At this point, I am leaning more towards needing to upgrade, with Taylor having the more shown potential of the two thus far.

I have mentioned this before, but when Deion Hankins was coming on the scene early in High School, people were mentioning that he was a SEC level RB and I thought that we would never get a chance to see him in a UTEP uniform. Now that he is playing for us and living up to what we hoped he could become, is a really nice feeling. Dimel and Staff have mostly improved our talent by doing a good job of evaluating under the radar guys, but Hankins is one of the few examples of where Dimel went out and actually beat people in recruiting.

Dimel has done a good job of getting the discipline and penalties under control compared to last year. That is even more impressive when considering all of the new players and the lack of normal practice time. We still had some of the same knuckleheaded play clock expiring issues yesterday in the second half, but overall, our discipline has been much improved this season.

The win and 3-1 record feels good and for the first time in a long time there is at least a positive buzz regarding us, even with some of the national media. Dave Campbell’s even has us ranked today as the #5 best team in Texas and even they mentioned in their podcast that they don’t think that has ever happened before. I don’t know if we are really a good team or not?, in fact I would lean towards not. Our best chance remaining looks to be the home game verses So. Miss. So I just hope that we can get through the bye week with no COVID outbreak and the La. Tech game without any injuries(as well as having at least a few things go well for us in that game, so that we can keep some of our confidence). What I do feel confident about saying, is that if a coach should be judged based on if his program is either improving or not improving, then I don’t think that there is any doubt that UTEP is a better team this year compared to last year.

Campbell ranks teams versus their conference.
 
Great thoughtful analysis. An OOC Road Win is rare and something to feel good about. As long as we don’t implode in the end. I think you can call it progress.
 
Good stuff, D.

Do you think Dimel was slow to tap JUCOS, and if so why, given Snyder’s success with them?

In Dimel’s first year, he signed 5 JUCO’s, but what he did differently is that he redshirted his JC guys at a higher amount than most coaches. This might explain why it took an extra year for that first JC class to see more results. For example, Justin Garrett, Justin Prince, and Josh Caldwell were all JC guys that Dimel signed during his first recruiting class 3 years ago and all 3 are starters on this year’s team. Most coaches sign JC guys because they need immediate help, not because they are willing to invest a redshirt year waiting for them to develop/adjust. Then this year he just seems to have hit on some immediate impact JC guys at an unusually high rate.
 
I do think as the game wore on that Fields started to run harder, I think he realized that he doesn’t have the speed over everyone like he did in high school. I feel he put his shoulder down, feet moving and bull his way for yards.
 
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I can’t believe that there is an 8 page thread about this ULM game and yet nobody has mentioned one of our top 3 individual performances: 1.) Hankins. 2). Hardison. 3). Keenan Stewart. Keenan Stewart was very good in this game and he is starting to become one of my favorite players to watch. His stats don’t jump out(as most DT’s usually don’t), but him and Moss are the biggest reason why ULM finished the game with only 7 TOTAL rushing yards for the entire game. Stewart is just a physical talent for our level of football who can play inside on running downs and DE in 3 man fronts and passing downs. Stewart had the QB pressure causing the first interception, he had a pass knockdown as a DE, and then he consistently set the line of scrimmage at the point of attack on running plays. I had to rewatch one running play because he was at the bottom of the pile and I didn’t remember him lining up on that side, so I rewatched it and he made the play as the opposite side DT. Just an impressive play. People that are 305 pounds are not supposed to move as fast as he does. He is another Sophomore JC player(like Hardison), who the coaching staff deserves a ton credit for going out and finding after only 1 year of JC. If he was a few inches taller or had gone back for one more year of JC, I would bet that he would have 15-20 FBS offers. Instead UTEP went and found him early. If you can not tell, I am becoming a big fan of watching Stewart play. UTEP has rarely had interior D-linemen with his ability over the years and I know that Praise(another Sophomore) is getting a lot of the local media, but I think that Stewart has the potential to maybe be a 2nd team all-conference type of guy before his career ends.

I was also impressed with Fryar’s blocking potential as a TE. He is another young JC guy(a redshirt freshman from NMMI). This was my first time watching him and I think he can be solid.

UTEP made an O-line adjustment in this game, by playing playing more Darta Lee at LT and mixing in Henry with Byers at RT.

I know that the staff likes Fields because of his good ball security and he is dependable with his responsibilities in the blocking schemes. I can respect that those are important aspects, especially when trying to grind out early wins, as we have done. I also don’t blame Josh, as there just have not been a lot of holes for him to run through this year. But it still almost feels like we are wasting a carry every time that he runs the ball. It just feels like we should be more aggressively developing a higher upside back like Awatt or Eldridge via more carries.

Grinding out wins against lower level teams is one thing and it is even fine when we are still building our program(as we currently are), but at some point we are going to want to take a next step and in order to do that some areas will need to be upgraded. It is never an easy thought to replace guys, but some areas that really could use an upgrade on offense are Fields carries at RB, Walter Dawn’s slot WR position and man if we were somehow able to find a true big transfer #1 WR, which would allow Cowing and Garrett to shift down to the #2 WR and #3 WR roles, then we could have a legitimate high end CUSA level passing game.

Our defense has given up less than 198 yards passing in 3 of our 4 games this year.

Dennis Barnes is another new JC guy, who got beat a couple of times(which will happen to every CB), but outside of those two plays, I thought he played very well also and is clearly improving.

After 1 1/2 games, I also don’t think that going from Van Hook to Theard has been much of a drop off.

We are getting so much quality early production out of our new guys, but one area where our new JC guys have not had an impact, are our 2 new JC ends(Williams and Taylor). It’s rare to be getting so much early success from JC guys(the old saying was that when you recruit a JC guy, you are only getting them for one year because they need a year to adjust). So is there hope that these two guys are going to turn the corner in the future, or do we need to actively work to upgrade them? At this point, I am leaning more towards needing to upgrade, with Taylor having the more shown potential of the two thus far.

I have mentioned this before, but when Deion Hankins was coming on the scene early in High School, people were mentioning that he was a SEC level RB and I thought that we would never get a chance to see him in a UTEP uniform. Now that he is playing for us and living up to what we hoped he could become, is a really nice feeling. Dimel and Staff have mostly improved our talent by doing a good job of evaluating under the radar guys, but Hankins is one of the few examples of where Dimel went out and actually beat people in recruiting.

Dimel has done a good job of getting the discipline and penalties under control compared to last year. That is even more impressive when considering all of the new players and the lack of normal practice time. We still had some of the same knuckleheaded play clock expiring issues yesterday in the second half, but overall, our discipline has been much improved this season.

The win and 3-1 record feels good and for the first time in a long time there is at least a positive buzz regarding us, even with some of the national media. Dave Campbell’s even has us ranked today as the #5 best team in Texas and even they mentioned in their podcast that they don’t think that has ever happened before. I don’t know if we are really a good team or not?, in fact I would lean towards not. Our best chance remaining looks to be the home game verses So. Miss. So I just hope that we can get through the bye week with no COVID outbreak and the La. Tech game without any injuries(as well as having at least a few things go well for us in that game, so that we can keep some of our confidence). What I do feel confident about saying, is that if a coach should be judged based on if his program is either improving or not improving, then I don’t think that there is any doubt that UTEP is a better team this year compared to last year.
FYI I watched the game again and of the 12 incompletions Hardison threw, there was 4 drops and 5 passes that needed a little better touch that could have been complete or at least give the WR a chance to catch it.

As long as the O-line gives him time this kid will only get better.
 
I'm glad that Stewart got his team recognition and that the Players of the Week exactly matched up:

I can’t believe that there is an 8 page thread about this ULM game and yet nobody has mentioned one of our top 3 individual performances: 1.) Hankins. 2). Hardison. 3). Keenan Stewart.

 
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The podcasters seem to believe in UTEPs defense. Here’s hoping.

We held ULM to SEVEN yards rushing. We also held their passing attack, which gained 375 yards through the air against TX ST, to 186 yards. ULM gained more yards against defensive minded Army, at Army, than they did against us.

I think it’s too early to say how good the defense might be, but if I had to hang my hat on a hook right now, it’d be the D. Not sure why the defense looked so inept against ACU, but I’m hoping that game was the anomaly, as opposed to last week’s game.
 
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We held ULM to SEVEN yards rushing. We also held their passing attack, which gained 375 yards through the air against TX ST, to 186 yards. ULM gained more yards against defensive minded Army, at Army, than they did against us.

I think it’s too early to say how good the defense might be, but if I had to hang my hat on a hook right now, it’d be the D. Not sure why the defense looked so inept against ACU, but I’m hoping that game was the anomaly, as opposed to last week’s game.
I hang my hat on the pass protection. It is nothing like what was observed at fall camp but rather the exact opposite.
 
We held ULM to SEVEN yards rushing. We also held their passing attack, which gained 375 yards through the air against TX ST, to 186 yards. ULM gained more yards against defensive minded Army, at Army, than they did against us.

I think it’s too early to say how good the defense might be, but if I had to hang my hat on a hook right now, it’d be the D. Not sure why the defense looked so inept against ACU, but I’m hoping that game was the anomaly, as opposed to last week’s game.
Is it our 2 new defensive tackles? I dont remember how much Texas ran on us, but it seems we are giving up way less rushing yards this year.
 
We held ULM to SEVEN yards rushing. We also held their passing attack, which gained 375 yards through the air against TX ST, to 186 yards. ULM gained more yards against defensive minded Army, at Army, than they did against us.

I think it’s too early to say how good the defense might be, but if I had to hang my hat on a hook right now, it’d be the D. Not sure why the defense looked so inept against ACU, but I’m hoping that game was the anomaly, as opposed to last week’s game.

I want to see how UTEP looks vs La Tech before I predict how the rest of the season will go. Vs the FCS schools they got the job done but they did not look that impressive. Texas pounded them like they owed them money and then they looked very good vs ULM. Those are 4 performances vary wildly so it’s tough to say which Miner team is the real Miner team.
 
Is it our 2 new defensive tackles? I dont remember how much Texas ran on us, but it seems we are giving up way less rushing yards this year.

I think it’s a variety of things. UT put up as many yards on the ground against us as the other 3 opponents combined. Take that 1 game away, and we are giving up way fewer rushing yards.

Like 8106 and others have said, what the D does against LaTech will tell a lot more about us.

I just thought they played damn near flawless last week. Either ULM is THAT bad, or our D has improved vastly. I’m hoping for the latter.
 
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