UTEP sports blog: Joe Muench has been a sports writer and a sports editor in El Paso for decades, but he’s best known as the columnist everyone loves to talk about. His UTEP athletics blog starts up the conversation again.
With the UTEP Miners having played their spring football game, it's time to start talking about the coming season.
To listen to or download a UTEP football podcast featuring Beau Bagley of KTSM, and Joe Muench and Pablo Villa of the El Paso Times, click here.
This is not just a guy going down for the next full season. Ho, hum, just fill his spot with the next guy. Nope, probably can't do that.
Braxton Amy, a junior, was to be the "Brian Urlacher-type player" on UTEP's new 3-3-5 defense brought in from the University of New Mexico. Amy led the Miners in tackles last season and was to play the new position that is a cross between linebacker and safety. It's called "hybred" and that sounds good.
He was to have been all over the field pounding down any opponent who had his hands on the football.
But Amy ripped the anterior cruciate ligament in a knee in a freak injury at spring practice.
So put the next guy in?
The next guys at the positon, three of them on the roster, have combined for zero career tackles.
This is an example of life as a mid-major. Depth is always a problem. There are few injuries to starters that can be afforded.
What to do? Forge on anyway. Maybe there's a new star to be found from the list of the "whozits." It's a long shot, but if Coach Mike Price has some luck, some unknown will burst out and start smearing running backs and receivers. Don't bet on it. But there's no harm in praying for it.
Faced with having to replace a good football player, I'd choose a receiver over any other position.
Good college receivers are a dime a dozen. Real good ones are 25 cents a dozen. Ever seen a passing team that didn't have anybody who could catch a lot of passes?
UTEP is better off losing receiver Fred Rouse than losing a good lineman. Vittatoe will complete just as many passes next fall, Rouse or not. Jeff Moturi, et al, make up a solid pass-catching group.
You can argue the fine points about Rouse's height, speed, hands.
I'd rather lose that than a good, steady lineman. You don't usually replace first-string linemen at middle-level schools in Conference USA, the WAC, Mid-American. You can't recruit two first-stringers at the same position.
It's so much easier to find another receiver.
When a player disrupts the team, as Fred Rouse obviously did, it's no loss when he leaves the program.
The bad part is that it could have been so good.
Coach Mike Price made the right move in giving this troubled, talented athlete a chance after he'd blown his welcome at Florida State. Blogger CLEO is right. A school like UTEP is not going to recruit a blue-chip skills-position athlete outright.
Talent wins games.
It must be remembered that, more often than not, a transfer is going to spill his baggage at his new school, too. Price hasn't had much luck with transfers: Sam never lived up to his billing (injuries were not his fault). That Wash. State transfer QB quit.
When we last left UTEP football, the Miners were finishing 0-4 in November. The final season record was 4-8. The last win came on Oct. 6.
Now here's where the "clangs!" come in:
Coach Mike Price, in 26 years as a head coach, has a November winning percentage of 35 percent. He's been to a lot of bowl games, including two Roses while at Washington State. But his teams don't win late in the season. That's been true at Weber State, Washington State and now here. Here he's 5-10 in November regular-season games (0-2 in December bowl games). It's always been a mystery. He's a good coach, and all.
Clang! UTEP has five November games in 2008: vs. Rice, at Louisiana-Lafayette, vs. SMU, at Houston and at East Carolina.
Clang! Five games in November is 40 percent of the whole season.
Clang!
There's still something that doesn't ring clearly in what's to be the hiring of a new UTEP defensive coordinator.
To hear coaches, Osia Lewis is leaving New Mexico for UTEP — a lateral move at best — because New Mexico Head Coach Rocky Long puts his fingers into the defense much more than does UTEP's Mike Price. Lewis can be the boss here, which will help his resume as he moves toward becoming a head coach someday.
And Long is saying Lewis' leaving has absolutely nothing to do with the NCAA investigation into the New Mexico football program.
Maybe all this is true. I'm not saying it isn't. But having been around coaches since 1966, it's clear to me that they can weave really convincing reasoning when there's really something else that lurks below the public's line of sight.
Also,we've known for quite a few days now that Lewis is to become the new UTEP defensive coordinator, but he has yet to be officially named by Price.
Speculation — all the conspiracy theories, if you will — usually end shortly after official decisions are announced. Could it be UTEP is doing its own investigation into Lewis "not being involved in the NCAA deal at New Mexico" before making the hiring final?
How come a defensive coordinator from a better football conference, and from a bowl team, is leaving his position to become defensivef coordinator at UTEP?
Just wondering how UTEP Coach Mike Price got Osia Lewis to leave New Mexico of the Mountain West Conference to take over one of the worst defenses, statistics-wise, in the NCAA.
Don't go for any "liked the challenge" quotes.
There's got to be a good reason the UTEP job is better than the New Mexico job.
Losing three assistant coaches should not hurt UTEP's football recruiting this year. Most universities have their commitments by Christmastime.
But losing both the offensive and defensive coordinators? Does that change things?
Still no problem ... well, probably no problem. Usually it's the younger coaches on the staff who do the bulk of the traveling to see recruits.
And most universities use more than one recruiter per recruit. It's a well-organized effort.
The bigger question is: What kind of class will the Mike Price regime bring in THIS year? This will be his fifth April Signing Day class composed of all his guys. His first class, 2004, is composed of players who will be fifth-year seniors this coming season.
And one can figure that since the Price staff got a late start in his first recruiting class (2004), classes from 2005 on should be better.
Eric Price leaving UTEP for the NFL means he'll make a lot more money for his family. It does bring up a UTEP situation, though.
Recall after Mike Price's first two years how it was bragged that the whole staff stayed intact because everybody believed in the program.
Later, Mike Price was say he had his whole relation here, or moving here. And that he didn't plan on going anywhere.
Then he looked at the Arizona State job two years ago. Then there was some serious talk about him going back to Washington State after this past season. He was contacted by WSU's headhunter early in the hiring process.
It's good that Mike Price is staying. And it's a good opportunity for Eric Price to go back into the pros (he was once with the Jets). Look for more coaching moves. The last two losing seasons will do that to a staff.
Meanwhile, Price now has two openings (Price's offensive coordinator's/QB job) and Tim Duffy's safeties job on defense. And remember Defensive Coordinator Tim Hundley has not come out and flatly said he's not going anywhere. When speculation started around Christmas time, he said simply that there was nothing to announce.
Does almost-Heisman winner Ryan Leaf hook back up with Mike Price as a new quarterbacks coach? Does somebody from staff move into Duffy's job, leaving open a slot to hire a new offensive coordinator?
The off-season is getting interesting in Utepia.
And upgraded contract?
UTEP football coach Mike Price, off two losing seasons in a row, says he is talking with Athletic Director Bob Stull about an upgraded contract. His present contract, with a lot of incentives for winning, runs four more years. He hasn't earned the right for a raise.
Yes, other coaches around get more money. Mack Brown at Texas makes 10 times as much as Price, whose base salary is about $260,000.
Then Price gets $10 for every season ticket sold after 10,000 and $1 for each fan who goes to a UTEP home game.
NOTE: That's not $1 for every announced fan. That's $1 for every audited ticket. If UTEP announces a crowd of, say, 35,000, figure the real ticket sale for that game is about 22,000. This year attendance was not good.
The deal here is El Paso can't afford to pay a high base salary, even for a coach as notable as Rose Bowl-goer Price. But it can afford to pay Price extra if he, himself, brings in more fans and he recruits and coaches well enough to have a winning season. And the better and better the season, the more the incentives escalate.
He gets bonus money for such things as: a winning season, conference championship, going to a bowl, conference coach of year ... finishing nationally ranked.
There's radio-show money, youth camp money, too. There's a lot of money to be had if his team is popular with El Pasoans.
Yes, he's considered a candidate to go back and coach at Washington State. He said he talked with Arizona State last year.
But Price has been 5-7 and 4-8 the last two years. He has not turned UTEP's program around — yet, anyway.
This year was his worst of four seasons. It is not the right time to be asking for a better deal.
Bottom line: He was hired to win games, and to get more money he has to do that.
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