That Will Do

Floyd's First: Rough, But Very Early

UTEP head coach Tim Floyd coached his first game as the Miners hung on to beat Eastern New Mexico in exhibition basketball action, 80-76. Floyd says as players make the transition from Tony Barbee's dribble-drive offense to a new system, there will be a lot of growing pains, pointing out many of his teams had the same early problems.

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Miners Mean Math: Is It Price Or Product?

Never argue with Math. As much as we may hate the un-sweet science for being the boorish know-it-all who can't resist telling you so, it is always right.

Miner Math has been easy to figure. More often than not over the years, a glance at the numbers on the scoreboard spells out a simple equation: (Opponent's Score) > (UTEP's Score).

Put another way, (Opponent's Score) - (UTEP's Score) = a positive number.

Positive number? If you follow the Miners, what's so positive about Tulane 34, UTEP 24?

Nothing.

See? Math sucks.

But it's the cold, hard, unmitigated truth. 

Don't spit your beverage all over your display, but Math also says UTEP is 5-3 and if it wins one more game it will more than likely go to a bowl.

Fans can rant about Mike Price and scream for change, but if the Miners manage to get to that bowl, Price will have put UTEP in more bowl games than any coach in the history of the program save Mike Brumbelow who had three -- a nice little run that began exactly 60 years ago.

Yes, there weren't nearly as many bowls in the 1950's, and Brumbelow won two of them. But to what exotic locale did Texas Western go for all three of those games?

To its own Kidd Field locker room. For the Sun Bowl.

Now it's Math and History doing a tag team.

How about this one -- Mike Price is one of only three men who coached for multiple seasons to never have fewer than four wins. Bob Stull and Bobby Dobbs, considered to be the best coaches UTEP has had, are the only other ones, and Stull was here for just three years.

As for booster bloodlust, calmase. Says here that Price wants to retire after this season.

He won't say so, but there are two reasons for this. First, Price has always been close to his quarterbacks and Trevor Vittatoe is no exception.

Vittatoe is also a senior and there is currently no blue chip signal caller to replace him, though if anyone could find a great juco or high school QB it's Price.

Second, coaching jobs like UTEP wear men down. Price wants to leave the Miners as a winner, but he wants to leave. He's in his 60's, was kissed by Sports Illustrated's swimsuit models -- or by the money they reap, anyway -- and has trod up and down Sun Bowl Road for seven seasons.

You thought the Chilean miners spent a long time in a hole, try the UTEP Miners. Try excavating a program buried for years by a lack of funding, geographic isolation and now -- once again -- apathy.

This is no call to get fans out to games, simply that when Price goes -- retired or fired -- I'm not so sure UTEP finds a better coach for the job.

Not unless fans are willing to shell out five times what they now pay for tickets. Not unless an earthquake swallows up a few hundred miles of I-10 and parks El Paso next to the Governor's mansion.

Fans see the Sun Bowl and the Durham Center and other UTEP facilities and declare, We should not be a losing program!

Really? In what fantasy world? By modern tee-ball standards, where little Billy swings until he hits the ball then gets a trophy?

Sports is about winning and losing; thus it's a tough business, football especially. No other sport demands that every little piece work exactly so over the course of 60 minutes, much less 60 years.

More math: Big-Time Programs = Big + Time.

Like a stalactite, traditional football powers have added layer upon layer of mineral -- money, fan support, on-field success -- over time.

You can't just wish one up. That's ignoring the math.

Would that we could.

Price Stays Strong Under Fire (Video)

UTEP head coach Mike Price talks about the Miners 34-24 loss to the Tulane Green Wave. UTEP is 5-3 and still on the cusp of bowl eligibility, but Price emphasized that the Miners have to recoup their ability to make the big play on offense if UTEP is to be successful. The Miners take on the Marshall Thundering Herd in Huntington, WV, Saturday afternoon.

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UTEP Post-Game Post-Mortem

UTEP's Antwon Blake and Travaun Nixon, along with head coach Mike Price, dissect the Miners 34-24 loss to the Tulane Green Wave. UTEP remains on the cusp of bowl eligibility, but has only one home game remaining against perhaps the toughest opponent to come to the Sun Bowl in SMU.

It's impossible to deny that the Miners have been their most disappointing the last two weeks. Winnable games against UAB and Tulane have come and gone, and still UTEP searches for the one win that not only puts the Miners in a post-season game, but assures them of their first non-losing season in five years.

 

UTEP Circles Wagons for Tulane

With a number of lingering injuries -- possibly including QB Trevor Vittatoe -- after a disappointing 21-6 loss to UAB, UTEP head football coach Mike Price has closed practices all week in preparation for the Tulane Green Wave. The Miners will be trying to get bowl eligible against Tulane this Saturday in the Sun Bowl.

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Price Gives A Hoot About Owls, Blazers

UTEP head football coach Mike Price talks about the Miners big win over the Rice Owls on homecoming and previews the upcoming C-USA game at UAB this Saturday. The game will be televised on Time Warner Cable Sports, Cable Ch. 24, at 2 p.m. MDT.

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UTEP Throws Rice, 44-24

What the UTEP Miners did to the Rice Owls was impressive enough. What they have done with themselves is even more amazing.

UTEP dominated in all three facets of the game -- offense, defense and special teams -- en route to a rout of Rice, 44-24, setting records along the way while setting off a lot of thought as to just how good this team really is.

The meat of the Miners schedule is coming, but perhaps the slow build-up in confidence was just what the doctor ordered for a team that has found more than one way to fold a tent over the last few seasons. That includes a real muck job last season against this same Rice squad that included two fumbles in the final minutes of the game that allowed the Owls a come-from-behind win.

UTEP is now 5-1 and on the porchstep of bowl eligibility. That cannot and should not be overlooked, in part because of this stat: in the entire history of the program, only one coach has taken three Miners teams to bowl games. That was Mike Brumbelow in 1953, 54 and 56; and he only took them to their own Kidd Field locker room for the Sun Bowl game.

Sure, there were fewer bowls back then and Conference USA has tie-ins to seemingly half the games that exist today.

But if the Miners can win one more game, Mike Price will have equaled the pinnacle of post-season coaching accomplishment in UTEP's record book.

Call that sad if you want, but this is El Paso, not Austin; and it's still UTEP, not UT.

UTEP will take the small victories, hoping to turn them into bigger ones.

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Price Hopes to Throw Rice

UTEP Head Coach Mike Price talked about the Miners solid 38-20 win over the New Mexico Lobos and previewed UTEP's homecoming game against Rice, a team Price would love to beat for the first time in five seasons.

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