UTEP Miners College Football Pregame Quote, 11/13/2023

I was really, really pleased with the defensive game plan that we put together to defend the air raid offense, air raid style of offense [against WKU]. I thought our defense played spectacular the whole game, especially in the first half. You know, really gave us a great opportunity to win the football game. I was pleased with the way we controlled the clock, didn’t turn the ball over in the first half, but not pleased with the way we didn’t finish the drives. And the first drive we had first-and-goal at the ten and had a chance to punch it in and take a 7-0 lead and didn’t because of a penalty there that I wasn’t sure about that happened there on that drive where they called us for a procedural penalty, which in review I thought I was correct. It was obviously it was offsides on them. And that kind of set the tempo for that drive. We had to settle for three and then the next drive leading up to that drive, within a five-minute span, we lost l our third and fourth string offensive tackles, and we’re playing with our fifth and sixth option tackles and, our tight end went out all within a five-minute span. We got the ball down there and I feel like if we would have scored at the end of the half there, it would have changed the whole outcome of the game to get a 10-0 lead just because of the way our defense was playing in the second half, and we didn’t convert the fourth down on the first drive of the half. I thought that was a missed opportunity, allowed them to get their score and then we threw the interception in there on the next possession that allowed them to get that long drive that they put together to get to get the go-ahead score to give them a two-score lead. So, from there we rebounded and got a score ourselves and then obviously they put together a nice drive at the end of the game. And I talked about the synopsis of that game, how I felt about it. A lot of outstanding performances. You know, I don’t get much time to look at some of the statistical stuff, but I looked at it in this open week and some of the things talking about throughout the season, you know, some of the individual performances that we’ve had. I look at our defensive front and I see, you know, three of our defensive linemen are in the upper baby top five or top six in the league in sacks. And obviously Tyrice [Knight] is in the lead and pretty much every defensive statistic that you can have for tackling. And I look at some of our receivers are up high and a couple of our running backs up really high [in the CUSA rankings]. So, there’s been some really good individual performances from some of our players. I’m proud of those guys and the effort that they’ve that they’re putting forth in that part of it. And as you look at that, you do that for a reason because as a coach, you really want to try to accentuate those things as you go into this next ball game that’s at Middle [Tennessee]. You know, Middle is a team that’s got a lot of talent. We know that they have a lot of players coming back from last year’s team that won a bowl game and had, you know, had a difficult schedule early in the year. MT played two SEC schools to come right out of the gate and then a Mountain West Conference opponent, tough loss that they had and have been on and off in conference but they had a nice, good win against FIU last week and got them back on track. You know, and now they have back-to-back home games and their quarterback played extremely well last week. They got three receivers that they really try to accentuate. They do a really good job. They got some good speed. They run well and catch the ball well. They got an h-back that’s playing really well for them as well. Throwing the ball is their strength of their offense. Defensively, they’ve got a really good front. I think their front four is outstanding, their secondary is solid and their linebackers play with a lot of energy. They like to bring in their linebackers a lot and in type and pressure type of situations. And so again, as we go into it, you know, Cade [McConnell], you know, will get another start, get more experience and gain some more experience as a starter. I’m looking forward to watching him play. We’re really looking forward to having a road day game and try to extend our road conference win streak to three, which would be a big, big accomplishment for our football team. And something to try to strive to this weekend as we as we go to Murfreesboro.

On the team’s/coaches’ motivation for the remainder of the season:

The motivation at this point is obviously we lost the opportunity to get to a bowl game. Motivation for us is the same thing I told the guys is that improving and putting your best performance out there with pride to what you’re accomplishing. And then also you know because of the injury situation, a lot of young guys are getting an opportunity to play and those young guys for them to continue to improve or of getting their first opportunity to play, to try to showcase what they can do to help them, to continue to improve and be better players in the future. So those are the things that we’re using as motivation there for some of our seniors. You know, they’ve been just outstanding and they’re working really hard. The leadership that they have and the effort that they put forth. Some I mentioned they’re playing outstanding players and some of them are still playing for the pride of their football team that they’ve been such leaders for.

On the offensive line:

One of the top 40 offensive lines in college football at the start of the year when they’ve been healthy and working together, they’ve played extremely well. This week it still remains to be seen if any of those guys will be back to play or not. Some of them were out there working today, which was good. That says a lot about them because they want to play. You know, and they’re motivated to play. And we don’t know currently who’s all going to be back and who’s not going to be back. It’s kind of a work in progress. But one of the things I did want to mention, is that once Jaquan Toney and Azizi Henry kind of calmed down right, and got settled in a little bit, we put that score together with those two guys in there at tackle. Once they calmed down, they really did a lot of good things.