UTEP Miners College Football Pregame Quote, 09/04/2023

As I had said before, the game started in last week’s press conference. How much talent I thought Incarnate Word had. And then when I saw them in warmups, I was even more impressed. I looked at some of the size of some of the players that they’ve been able to get through the transfer portal, you know, guys that really, you know, big physical, good-looking players across the board on both sides of the line of scrimmage. And then of course, the quarterback was really an impressive player and I thought their receivers were really, really talented receivers. So, it was definitely a really good test for us. And our first home game and in the first half was a well contested, well, well fought football game. You could, you know, see that you know, they were obviously a team that won 12 games last year and was one of the best teams in their division and this year picked in the top ten And you can you can see why it was a good a good hard first half ended up, you know at the end of the half getting a good stop right there defensively and then going into halftime tied up and so you know at halftime we knew that first drive was going to be really important for us. So, we went out and had a really, really successful first drive of the second half, overcame a couple of penalties in that drive, which was big as well. We ate up a lot of clock in that drive as well and got the ball in the end zone with I think like an eight-and-a-half-minute drive or whatever it might have been. It was very long, took up a lot of time off the clock and got us a lead. And then once we had the lead, we did play a little bit differently. Like we had said, you know, we think we’re just a, you know, much better team when we get play with the lead because we can be even more aggressive on defense and more and no bit more aggressive on offense defense, you know, Ben, and didn’t break at all in the second half. They had some drives where they moved the ball, you know, on us. Some in the second half, the run game, we completely shut down the run game in the second half and made them really one dimensional, which was really important defensively. You know, I just think our defensive line really started to take control of the game and then offensively our offensive line took control of the game and our backs ran so hard and our quarterback did a really good job of taking what they gave us at times, you know, And he made some really good RPO checks in the run game to hit some touchdowns. You know, the touchdowns that we had in the game in the second half were both RPO of his for run game for him, where he made some really good decisions and got the ball out to the receivers. And so that part of our game was really clicking and we controlled the clock and got two good touchdown drives there rolling in the second half. So just really well-played football by the Miners. The things we need to improve on from that game I thought was I wasn’t happy with our special teams play and we made some changes to that as far as our special teams goes. As far as personnel, you know, when you get some more of our talented players on the field, in our special teams. And I wasn’t happy with the 10 penalties. You know, I just think we kind of, you know, didn’t play the way we needed to play in some situations and made some mistakes that way. So those are the things the special teams play, the penalties. We got to clean that up. That’s a big emphasis this week. And then we just got to, you know, start faster than what we did last week. Again, that’s trying to get off to a faster start this week as we get ready for another road game. I do think I said this after our first road game. I really think that that test of a trip to Jacksonville, Alabama, tested our football team in every form or fashion that a road game can test you.

An overview of Northwestern:

So, the test against Northwestern is, you know, again, a big a Big Ten team that has a lot of physical, physical football players. Our typical Big Ten football team, when you watch the game against Rutgers, you know, it was just a physical contest from both sides of the ball, both teams just pounding on each other and a lot of physical play going on with it. And so we know we got to be ready for that type of football. Any time you face a Big Ten team and in the face of such and big, strong, powerful athletes and that’ll be the big test for us with them at the I’m the transfer quarterback that’s a really good players have a lot of success in his career that came in this summer to be with and they got a running back that’s really strong talented running back that we think is a is a very hard runner that’s had some success, had some injuries there in the past, but had some success. They’ve got to transfer receivers that are dynamic for him, that are very quick and getting good athletes at the receiver position and they got big, strong, tight ends. They can block and catch the ball, come out of the backfield. So, they’re going to be a and definitely a real true test for us from their offense defensively. They’ve got a ton of experience back in their front seven. You know, their two linebackers have started in a bunch of games and one of them had 19 tackles last week. They’re both physical, very physical players, good players on the defensive line. They played about ten guys in the first game, so they got a lot of depth across the defensive front. In the secondary, they have a nickel that’s a really, really good player for them. And then they got some young, young safeties and corners and another corner that’s coming back, that’s an experienced player, that’s real physical player as well. So, they don’t have many weaknesses across the board. They’re real fundamentally sound defensively. They play their gaps and they’re playing very well and they’re well coached defensively. It’s a defensive package, is very proven throughout college football. And so again, it’s going to be a big test for us. And we talked about the things we got to improve on to have an opportunity to win this football game. So, you know, that’s what we’re facing this week. And so, one of the questions from there, sort of unusual here, you’re a favorite and they have a long losing streak. Is that kind of change the mentality? No, I mean, what’s it like playing with a losing streak that long as well? You know, it’s a team that’s really hungry. I know that they’re a very hungry team. I know they played good football and they’re very you know, they’re very competitive football team that way. They’re a new team this year.

On the Running Backs Deion Hankins, Mike Franklin and Torrance Burgess Jr.:

You know, I really like the 2021 backfield of Ronnie [Awatt} and Deion [Hankins] and Q [Quardraiz Wadley], but Q could never stay healthy, you know, bless his heart. I’m paying tribute to him because I thought we had those three. We have three really talented running backs in the backfield. I feel like this group can be that or better you know kind of showed that Saturday and just needs to continue to keep improving because Torrance and Mike are young you know and they got it. We know they have the talent, but they’re young. They’ve just got to keep improving. But I think between the three of them, if they continue to perform because they performed really well Saturday, they ran really, really well. They all did some neat stuff. It wasn’t like there was just gaping holes for them. Now, you know, Torrance did some really, really good stuff, and then Mike really improved a lot, too, from Mike looks like what we thought Mike was going to be. So, I’m really excited about the potential in that group for sure.