Football medical rehab

Can it be? UTEP spring football practice moving from the Glory Road field to that big physical rehab center on Mesa near the campus? No, quarterback Trevor Vittatoe is not hurt. Bet that any Miner who even breaths on the junior-to-be loses his scholarship. UTEP has absolutely no chance of a winning season without a healthy Vittatoe.

UTEP can't afford serious injuries to any of the top players. The Miners are not deep in talent — never have been. And the schedule is not favorable. No way will UTEP beat Texas or Kansas. That means the Miners will have to win seven of their other 10 games to finish with a winning season (7-5). As one poster this week correctly pointed out, a lot of any team's fortunes rest on how good the opponents will be. UTEP should be much better this year. Does that add up to more wins?

Back to the injuries: Are 23 surgeries (and counting?) somebody's fault? Bad shoes? Bad Sun Bowl turf? (Actually it is worn). Death-march-type assistant coaches?

The operative word here is FLUKE. That many injuries has to be either a FLUKE or a Rio Grande tsunami.

Now back to spring practice:

"Men," says Coach Mike Price. "Today the offense is required to sit in the whirlpool. The defense will ride stationary bikes."

Comments

[Max]

Another Football season down the drain !!

[just a thought]

Thank for throwing me a bone Joe. Football coaches at the low/mid collegiate level have it the worst. Some could say college players already know how to tackle so take it easy at practice right? USC and Texas can afford to do that because they'll give the other four-star some practice reps. When UTEP drops a starter, the other 21 practice players notice.

Some collegiate players actually do not know how to tackle and even if they do, full speed practice in full pads is needed to keep the level of physicality high. What's the difference? Well practice in shorts in helmets is not much more than two-hand touch. Half speed in full pads is like a pregame warm-up.

On paper Price has the same defense as New Mexico or West Virginia (prior to the departure of Rich Rodriguez) but that's where the similarities stop. Physicality doesn't translate in X's and O's.

[Kblue]

Prediction for the upcoming year:

The UTEP football team makes the inaugural CFI (College Football Invitational) Bowl game with a 4-8 record playing against and losing to a PAC 10 team with a 2-10 record.

[Truth]

For all the dedication that our guys have and they have plenty. I personally know that many of the top athletes watch what they eat carefully and lift religiously.

For all that dedication, they are still pretty skinny. They don't fill out a uniform the way those guys in the big 12 do. So the durabilty of the athlete is affected by the physical pounding even if they are just pounding the turf.

I don't think there have been the catostrophic type of injuries we saw last year with Walker and Amy. Hopefully we can get outta spring with everyone relatively healthy or getting that way and be ready for Socorro where the real pounding can begin.

[LasAgg]

I like the CBI bowl, where is it going to be played at the Sun Bowl? Not only will it be played on our home field, the school needs to pay $250,000 to stage the game.

Sound ridiculous? I thought so.

[Miners1]

Hey lasagg last I heard your aggs might not be playing division 1 football. It's bad enough you have to give your tickets away now you have to bribe them with free food and things like that. It's real sad that you can't find a blog for your own team but now you have to make yourself look pathetic on our blog. Maybe you should pay your fans to come to your games, although I still don't think they will come. I guess you will have to keep making the best out of the only sellout that you will have, which is when we come to town. I am interested to see how your team adjusts to life without chase and chris. Maybe you should go out for the team I hear they are having open tryouts for a new QB. Have fun next season!!!

[Jon]

This teams on offense alone is good for 6 wins and a Bowl game birth. UTEP offense will be one of the best in C-USA, if not in the country. A great QB, experienced line, two talented WR, and a power and speed running game, it will be very hard to stop UTEP. If UTEP's defense could even just show marginal improvement, this team could win 8 games easy.

And as for looking at the schedule, Texas and kansas are loses but NMSU (with no Chase and Williams) is an easy win and Buffalo lost a lot of seniors. Expect this team to start 2-2.

As for conference play...

Tulsa loses their star senior QB, star RB and star WR.

Houston looks tough, they bring back all their key players.

SMU is still rebuilding....

Rice lost all their senior stars (Clement and Dillard)

Tulane has never really been competative

and UTEP gets Memphis, UAB and Marshall instead C-USA east powers ECU, Southern Miss and UCF.

So if you look at the schedule it actually looks very favorable for UTEP. But thats just on paper, you never know how a season will play out.

[CLEOFITZWITZ]

You never know how a season will play out is right. It makes my skin crawl to hear people say that this game or that game is a for sure loss. Maybe that comes from my own mindset from my playing days. Those were not in college. I hope our guys never go into any game believing that they can't or won't win.

What goes on at Nichols State, UTEP, TCU, and USC is a world apart. That's like traveling from Mercury to Venus to Earth to Mars. We are going to be skinnier overall and the athletes who run 4.3 are 5 ft. 8 in. The guy who is 6-5 320 lbs. has a 15 inch vertical. The weight room and the off season conditioning can do wonders but they may not get you to the next planet.

They do sell out the dirt hill with seats in Cruces. Mayfield vs. Las Cruces really draws em in.

[Derby]

Miners to the CFI? Hilarious!

[Toasted Whitebred]

I think our defense will improve next year and here's why.

1. Experience on defense - nuff said
2. Experience on offense - Miners return plenty of hogs from the O line, wide receiver, running backs and quaterback.
3. Running game - we have backs coming in to shore up a weak spot from last year including a couple of bruisers.

I think most of us will agree that the strength of our team lies in the offense. A strong offense will allow us to control the clock better and move the sticks consistantly. Hopefully the defense will improve relative to talent but at least they should get out of the 100s with the help of a powerful offense.

Anyone seen Eric Price around?

[nathan duran]

wasnt the turf going to be replaced this summer? thats what i heard?

[JAFO]

If the Miners are playing that gimmick defense, no way do they have a winning season. Reminds me of the Aggies of the last three years who had a good QB and receivers but no defense. What a waste.

[CLEOFITZWITZ]

The 3-3-5 is a good defense for a school like UTEP to run. It allows us to put our best athletes on the field at one time since it utilizes versitile players. The linebackers will need to pass cover as will the safety. The D-backs need to be physical since they will often blitz and have to engage linemen.

UTEP was struggling last year because the D-linemen were not physical enough to handle most big O-lines. This made the job harder for the linebackers since they were now mismatched physically.

The other glaring weakness was that our D-backs couldn't tackle very well. That made for a lot of hair pulling by Miner fans watching receivers pile on yards after the catch.

We may improve by getting bigger at the D-line and linebacker positions but nothing will help us if our guys don't tackle. There is probably some serious cramming going on at Glory Field.

[nopainnogain]

gimmick defense? JAFO, how can you judge a defense, when it's only been in place for a year? I have a feeling, you're one of the numerous fans who doesnt have a clue what they're talking about. defense is not all about X's & O's. you need the right type of player for a given defense & the miners obviously had very few of those in the defense's 1st year.

then you add the fact that amy, who would've been a good fit for the scheme, goes down, which didnt help an already young 2ndary. give them a chance to recruit the right type of players for the defense before blasting it. I would also remind you that utep played quite a few light's-out offenses last year. 4 of their opponents were ranked in the top 10 offensively (Tulsa-#2, UT-#5, Rice-#8, Houston-#10). LA Laffeyette (#24), Buffalo (#31), and Southern Miss (#33) also had good offenses.

6 of their 7 losses were to bowl teams (4 of which won their bowls). They beat Southern Miss, who won their bowl game. A TOTAL of 11 points was the difference between 5-7 and 8-4. (lost by 1 to NMSU, & by 5 each to Rice and Houston).

Provided that our offense stays at the same pace, even a small improvement on defense could get us to 7-5 easy. our Home-Away schedule is very favorable. roads vs NMSU, SMU, & Tulane shouldn't be tough at all. our road vs UT doesnt really change things since we'd probly lose either way. meanwhile, we get tough games like Buffalo, KU, Houston, and Tulsa at home.

[State]

Why is everyone talking FB when it is still 5 months away?
I forgot, Utep has no mens sports in the spring, and the annual CBI game doesn't count either!

As for us Aggie fans, theres always the national past time, baseball.
Best of the luck to the nationaly ranked Aggies (#23), as they take on WAC and National Champ, Fresno St. Bulldogs this weekend. Go Aggies!

[JAFO]

Oh yes, the 3-3-5 is the best defense on the football planet. It works so well that most college and pro teams use it. Wait, check that, hardly anyone uses it. Sure the 3-3-5 might surprise some teams, but overall, it falls flat. Heck even your rival NMSU dropped the defense in favor of a 4-3.

Expect a 5-7 UTEP to drop the 3-3-5 before next season, along with the defensive coordinator. Mark my words, the UTEP head coach will be saying things like, "commitment to winning necessitated a change. Yada yada yada."

[Jon]

NMSU actually winning in something?

[D A Naudin]

Why don't you people wait until the football season gets here and let them play the games. If there were not so many negative vibes coming out in April and on through the season, perhaps the team would accomplish more. Give them an even chance.

[Kblue]

Didn't pathetic NMSU beat pathetic UTEP this year in football while the Miners beat NMSU last year? And didn't pathetic NMSU beat and lose to pathetic UTEP in basketball?

Face it, UTEP and NMSU are mirror images of one another. You girls who want to believe one is better than the other are delusional. They are both the same. So what that you beat up on each other, you can't beat anyone else. Neither of your school's teams wins consistently in anything to be winners.

[State]

Quick correction Kblue,
NMSU beat pathetic Utep this year and last year too.

So Kblue,
Who's your team? Judging by your alias: Michigan, Duke?
C'mon give us something.

[nopainnogain]

yea it is true the aggies won. however, I guarantee you utep would've won last year if our starting qb, best receiver, and best runningback weren't all injured in the beginning of the game. even then the aggies barely scraped a 1-point victory after our fill-in freshman qb fumbled an exchange with the freshman runningback around the 10-yardline when they were about to score.

The school's baskteball teams have been relatively equal in recent years, but I'd have to say that utep's football is definitely better than nmsu's. coach price is at least .500 in his 5 years at utep (30-30) with 2 bowl game appearances. nmsu's coach just got fired last year after going 11-38 (.224) in his 4 years there. nmsu hasn't made a bowl game since like 1960. & remind me which school is about to be bumped down to D-1aa because of poor attendance? it aint utep that's for sure. no one said the 3-3-5 was the best defense in the world, but you can't say it's crap after the coach has barely had the system in place one year. there is more than one defensive scheme that works in football. guess what, nmsu's big 4-3 defense sucked horribly last year too.

[Kblue]

State: Kentucky. Yeah, NMSU won last year. They played frigging UTEP, a team with a losing record. So they won against the Little Sisters of the Poor Miners.

And in response to nopain's "...yea it is true the aggies won. however, I guarantee you utep would've won last year if our starting qb, best receiver, and best runningback weren't all injured in the beginning of the game. even then the aggies barely scraped a 1-point victory after our fill-in freshman qb fumbled an exchange with the freshman runningback around the 10-yardline when they were about to score..." The game isn't played on your guarantees or what might have been. You can say it until you are blue in the face but it counts for squat. Nada! The game is decided on the field with the players on the field. I went to the UTEP/Aggie game three years before, first year of that Chase kid at QB at NMSU, the Aggies outplayed the Miners all over the field and lost because they fumbled the ball five times. Does it make a difference if I guaranteed that the Aggies would have won that game had this or that not happened. The only thing you can say for sure is that the game was won or lost, and the Miners won it three years ago. And that's it.

So, ladies, you can argue which is best, but the reality is until both of your less than stellar teams are playing in real bowl games (not the New Mexico Bowl) and the NCAA tournament, (not the Can Buy my way In tournament), then you don't have much to talk about. And yes, State, I realize the Aggies had a Top 25 ranked volleyball team, baseball team, rodeo team this year, and one other team that escapes me, but so what. Until you Aggies are in the top 25 in football or mens and womens basketball, claiming to be better than the Miners is all just wisps of pointless smoke. Same goes for the Miners.

[marcusg23]

kblue didnt kentucky jus give coach cal a 8yr 31mil contract and are paying billy g a few mil for his two nit stint. yeah we payed 60k to get to the cbi but whose really paying to win games. and if we have a chance to meet in the nit or big dance whose the real fools here.

[State]

Kentucky? aka, the SEC's bottom feeder in FB, right?
At least Utep and NMSU know where they stand in FB.
Kentucky has one good year under Rich Brooks you guys think your better than Florida or Alabama. PLEEAASEEEEE!

[Kblue]

marcus: Yeah, but we can afford it. We had our fill of Billy and his antics. He couldn't win in a good conference. Maybe he'll come back and lead you to second place in CUSA and another trip to the CBI. At least we regularly play those tough teams. Not one good team, which you lose, a season.

State: I'll take being a bottom feeder that wins sometimes in a great conference to a middle of the pack team in a conference like CwhoSA or the WACK any day.