UTEP Football Signing Day Press Conference

EL PASO – First-year UTEP football head coach Dana Dimel announced the signing of 27 student-athletes on National Signing Day.

Here's what Dimel said at the Signing Day Luncheon at the LKD Center at the Sun Bowl on Wednesday.

Coach Dimel Opening Statement
"What a great time. What great excitement in the room today. There's so much to talk about. This is a great time so we can talk about the recruiting and how it all falls into place. We can talk about the state of the program, the stories from recruiting."

On selling El Paso
"We've really tried to sell El Paso because there's so many positive things to the city of El Paso. As we were going through the recruiting weekends, I was obviously so busy working and making sure the program was getting starting off in the right direction… the strength program with the players. When the recruiting weekends came along I was getting recruited too. We were showing guys El Paso, and I'm looking at El Paso going 'wow, so many cool things.'

On a typical recruit visit
"We started off with the Chihuahuas' stadium, showing them that great venue there on Friday nights. I have a great story to tell about that. One of our coaches on our staff has been in the business for over 30 years. He and his wife have been in some tremendous places. Throughout their recruiting experiences have been multiple power-five schools and after that first Friday night we had at the Chihuahuas, his wife said 'hey this was the best Friday night recruiting we've ever had. You talk about that, what a great way to start your weekend with the kids. And on Saturday and Sunday we tried to show them around the community, show them the campus. We would show them the UTEP Student Union but also the Doubletree Hotel; taking them up to the 17th floor of the Doubletree Hotel looking out over El Paso. Taking them to Coronado Country Club, seeing that view up there. Getting great support from the people there at Coronado Country Club, so much help from them as well. But the whole time I'm just looking at things going, 'hey if I'm a recruit I'd love to come to school here. This is a great place.' Compare it to other places that I've been, this has just got so many assets to build around the town. It was a great start to the weekends as we tried to bring these guys in and show them all of the positive things."

On the impact of social media
"We also tried to reach out to them in the social media world because as you all know, as Jim (Senter) talked about, today's day and age it's all about social media for these guys. It's all about being recognized. They want to see themselves on Twitter. They want to see themselves out there and for us it serves a two-way path. We also want to make sure that everybody is getting to know our players. We want all of you to know our players and get a great feel for what our players are about because the more identity that you have with our players the more you're going to want to come watch them play and see what they can do. It's a two-way street."

On coaching the bowl game
"I stayed back and coached the bowl game and I wanted to do that for multiple reasons. Just because of loyalty to K-State but also the major reason was to get the national brand of UTEP out there on a national level. The exposure we got from coaching that bowl game and getting seen on national TV and having the success that our offense had was a really, really a positive thing for us to help to sell the program."

On the initial recruiting process
"But during that time, we were also putting together a heck of a first recruiting weekend. Our first recruiting weekend came about, I talked about the things that we showed the players. We also had a lot of players who were already invested in the program because we were selling it."

Talking more on social media
"After that weekend, we started putting out some tweets. One of my favorite tweets was that one that we put out where after we reeled in some of those guys we put out a tweet of a Miner strutting through the Mineshaft. I mean, that was unbelievable. That was great. It was really, really a fun thing. And then this last weekend as we went through, we were closing out and getting some really good players, getting some of the big dogs coming to the program. And we had on Twitter, we had a dog talking on the phone there talking to recruits. Some of that stuff is just some neat stuff and believe me, all of that stuff goes a really, really long way with these players."

On his staff and the impact for recruiting
"With that all being said here we are. Obviously, excited about the staff that we've been able to put together here is tremendous and the players have fed off of that. The recruits that we're talking to, it's not only the program, the facilities, the town of El Paso, but it's also how are you going to make me better as a coach? That's one of the most important things that you can sell to the players is that we've got a staff that can make you a whole lot better as a person, as a student and as a football player. I think we've got a great staff to do that. I'm really pleased about the guys that are here with us to help it happen."

On evaluating the program's talent and how that impacted recruiting
"As you come in as a coach the first thing you want to do is evaluate the talent that you have on the team. Once we start talking about football strategy and some of the talent that we have on the team at this point. And we went back and looked at the numbers of the players that we had on each position. We went back and watched film on those players. We got time to evaluate them here through the offseason, you know the initial part of the offseason and that's how we put our numbers together with the class. We're looking at hey, where are some of the most important needs? Some of the most important needs, we thought, just looking at the specifics of the program, were to build our young offensive line numbers, our young defensive back numbers and our wide receiver numbers. As we addressed it, we said that those are some of the important things that we're going to have to address. And then also on the defensive side of the ball we wanted to make sure we got some guys who could rush the passer because in today's day and age you've always got to be able to stop the run defensively but you've also got to be able to rush the passer. We wanted to be able to get some guys that could rush the passer as well. And then we wanted to put together, not only help our young offensive line needs, but also make sure that we've got good numbers in the offensive line moving forward. Offensive and defensive linemen are such an important position to develop because the fact that maturity is a huge part of being a good offensive or defensive linemen. We said, 'ok, how can we bring a good number of o-linemen and d-linemen into the program?' And all of us know that the better you are up front on both sides of the ball the better you're going to be. We addressed those needs."

On the class a whole
"We're bringing 27 players into the program; we're bringing 27 athletes into the program right now. We're bringing in 14 offensive players, 10 defensive players and three specialists. As we look at the quarterback position, which is very, very critical. We've talked about the offensive line position being very critical. We're bringing in eight new offensive linemen, four wide receivers, and two quarterbacks into the program. That's our 14 players on offense. And then on defense to address the defensive line we're bringing in three defensive tackles, three defensive ends, three defensive backs and a linebacker. That gets us our 10. And we have our three specialists coming in as well. It's important as you build a program, it's just not offense and defense, you have to look at special teams. Special teams is about linebackers, defensive ends, fullbacks, tight ends and DB's but it's obviously about your specialists too. You have to build depth in your specialist positions. We're bringing in a snapper, a kicker/punter, and we're also bringing in another kicker. And then as you all saw the other day we're being creative to find talent. From the tryout, we found three positional players too. A kicker, a kicker/punter and a snapper. We've already fortified those positions on the team because you've got to be well-rounded."

On signing Tres Barboza
"Talking about specifics, Tres Barboza is one of our offensive linemen who we brought into the program. He's here now. Tres is a great story because he speaks for what we're doing here. When we recruited Tres, I talked about in my press conference, we were going to recruit based on what we saw on film. We're going to recruit them whether they were four stars or had other offers and no other offers, we're going to recruit guys because of what we see on film. Tres is a great story about that, because when we recruited Tres, ?he's coming out of JUCO, he's got four for three, which a lot of our JUCOs have eligibility wise because that was important to build for the future. We bring Tres in on a visit and we end up offering Tres. Well because of our reputation, the word gets out and before Tres gets back on Monday after his visit he's got two power five offers and two other offers from schools within our league immediately after we offered. He went back home on Monday and thinking things over, he decided that he was going to go and look at all the other four offers that he had before he made a decision because he could come out at mid-year, stay a second semester. As a coach, you're like 'obviously, this isn't your favorite.' But the more and more we talked to him, the bond that he built with the players when he was here being very, very critical, the city of El Paso that he got to see. And so that night he changed his mind and decided to commit to us. Right off the gate that shows you, we talked about not being afraid to get into fights if we need to and we did."

On five-star recruit Oscar Draguicevich
"Oscar is a five-star punter so you start off talking about how many programs across the country and how many programs in our conference can sit here and say they signed a five-star? We start off our first recruiting class with a five-star. I know that's something to be real proud of and he's also going to answer the question on the field because we know we have to fulfill that position and fortify that position as soon as possible."

On talking about the quarterback position
"Then you talk about the quarterback position, and so the quarterback position is just indicative of our whole class right now. The quarterback position, we wanted to fortify the now to put the best program, the best team that we can put out on the field next year but we also wanted to build for the future.

"Obviously, we went out and got Kai Locksley, who was the junior-college player of the year and the number-one ranked quarterback in the country in junior-college football. We all know that it's hard to be good on offense if you're not good at quarterback. Everybody that knows the game understands that so to go out and get the very best junior-college quarterback that you can get in college football probably is the way to fulfill a need. We ended up signing Kai; Kai is very athletic. He runs extremely well. He's very intelligent, which is important from that position, but he can also throw the ball extremely well. Having Kai in the program has obviously been a huge plus for us. He's already here on campus working, providing leadership to our football team, showing off his athletic ability. On our visits, we measure wingspan because it's important to have tall, long, explosive athletes. Kai, he's a quarterback, but he's got an 80-inch wingspan so that's the wingspan of someone who is 6-8 tall. When he gets the uniform on, he looks the part.

"We also wanted to make sure that with that quarterback position that we were fulfilling it for every year in our program. We also added Brayden Hawkins to our program, and he is a really, really talented quarterback from North Carolina. He chose to come here all the way from North Carolina. He's a big, impressive looking guy. He can see over the pocket, see things well. He's got a really good arm as you can see on all the highlights here. But he also the thing that you've got to have to play quarterback for us, and that's leadership. His football team was 12-1 last year, and he's got good feet so he can move and do some things.

We had to fill the concerns about the offense so we're trying to fulfill those concerns as much as possible by making sure that we have a quarterback in every class. Right now, you look at the UTEP football program and there's a quarterback in every class. We've obviously got guys on the team that are going to compete for that starting spot as well. That's one of the things that we said when we took over the program. We're starting 1-0. This is all about the future of UTEP football, and everybody in the program will have a chance to compete. Kai and Brayden are here and the other guys will compete. There's some good talent at the quarterback position, it just needs to come along, gain some confidence and some good things there."

On the offensive line
"I talked about the eight offensive linemen. We're going to have some big dudes coming into on campus. We got one of them, Tres that I talked about already, and the other seven are going to come into the program."

On the wide receivers
"At receiver, we're going to have Justin Garrett, who's here right now and already working doing some really good things. Justin's a great story. He comes out Compton, out of Los Angeles, out of the Compton area. His mom's done a great job of raising him and giving him a chance to get an education as a single mom. That's a great story. He's going to provide a lot of leadership to our football team.

"We've got Andrew (Nwachukwu). He's a guy that's got some good length and some good speed. He catches the ball extremely well. When we recruit receivers, we recruit a whole mode of receivers. We recruit them from all different levels. We want a tall guy that can run, a short guy that is quick. We want a big guy that can catch the ball and run after the catch. There's all kind of things we're trying to form as we put together our receiver recruiting classes. We knew it was important to go out and sign some guys in that field. We've got Ricky Baker, a walk-on that's a really good player from Prestonwood (Christian Academy) that's going to a really good job for us as well. Then there's Jonathan Patrick, a speed guy from Houston."

On the defensive signees
"We have 10 signees on defense, six of them are defensive linemen. Three of them are inside guys. We talked about you've got to be good stopping the run inside. Jenson Misaalefua is a guy that we've signed from Carson (Calif.) is a powerful strong athlete. Trent Thompson is another inside guy that's a tremendous player. He's really athletic, runs extremely well. We signed Savien Jenkins out of Schertz Clemens HS. He's an outstanding athlete who can do some great things on the inside.

"On the outside, we signed Praise Amaewhule from Katy Taylor HS. Praise is long and athletic. Praise had an 82-inch wingspan. He can run and rush the passer. He's going to be a really special player for our program. Same for Nathan Logoleo from Mater Dei. He's an outstanding player as well at the defensive end position. Looking forward to him doing some really neat things for us. We're putting together some good pieces there in answering our concerns on the defensive line.

"At linebacker, there's a lot of linebackers on the team right now so we didn't feel that was an immediate need for us. We did sign Cal Wallerstedt. His dad played with me at Kansas State. He's coming out of North Carolina. He's a real physical player, played in the Blue/Gray All-Star game this winter and did outstanding in that game. He's a tremendous player there at the linebacker position.

Then we went out and signed three defensive backs. It was important to get immediate help at the defensive back position. We went out and signed Josh Caldwell, a junior-college player. Josh again has four for three; he has four years to play three so he has some time to progress in our program and do some good things there. We're very happy about what Josh brings to the table as well. "

On the class as a whole
"There's a lot of ability that was put together in the recruiting class but the biggest selling point in all of it was what this program is all about. The trust that these players and these recruits have in what we're bringing to the table. We're an all-star cast of coaches, a lot of energy in the program with a great group of guys."

On what regions UTEP recruited
"We hit Texas hard; we talked about proximity and where we've been. We used our connections in the state of Texas. We signed 14 players from the state of Texas. That's important, we're going to have to build from that. Then we signed eight players from Southern California. The proximity of Southern California is important as well. The parents of the recruits from Southern California, they can get on a plane and be here quickly. We hit those areas. The third-most state we signed guys out of was North Carolina. We signed two out of North Carolina. We signed one out of Arizona, one out of Colorado and then Kai of course is from Maryland via Iowa Western CC. We spread the country pretty well but we're going to build our foundation from the state of Texas."

Coach Dimel Closing Statement
"That talks a lot of details about our recruiting, some of the stories that are involved with our recruiting. The most important thing is where the program is going and the excitement we have about the program. We're looking forward to doing some special, special things here at UTEP."

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