Ruben R. Ramirez

UTEP Weekly Football Press Conference Transcript: Oct. 4

10/4/2021 3:54:00 PM

Audio | Game Notes

EL PASO, Texas – UTEP head coach Dana Dimel spoke with the media Monday in advance of the team's road game at Southern Miss on Saturday, Oct. 9 at M.M. Roberts Stadium with kickoff slated for 6 p.m. CT/5 MT.

Head Coach Dana Dimel

Opening Comments on the win versus Old Dominion:
"Last week's game, a lot of learning for our football team in that ball game. We came out and started the game really, really well, which was important to us. A key in the first half was three offensive possessions and three scores. But when you talk about that, only three offensive possessions – we didn't have a turnover, we scored three times and chewed up the clock. Going into the last drive that ODU had with 51 seconds left in the half and they've had the ball 20 snaps. Obviously when you're playing the kind of defense that we're playing and you only give a team 20 snaps to get any type of rhythm to their offense, you put yourself into a really good position. One of the things we've improved on a bunch is our red zone passing game. To me, that's critical for us as we move forward to be able to create big plays on third down. Basically, we had two and we were really close on the first drive and we got ourselves into a third and long. I'd like to see us better on early downs in the red zone and not put ourselves in third and long. It's not easy to throw the ball and third and long in the red zone, and we've been really efficient. JG [Justin Garrett] and Gavin [Hardison] made a great play on one, and Tyrin Smith made a really great catch on another one. The execution was really good on both of those plays. Until the last 51 seconds of the first half, it was pretty much very good football for us. We had just missed a tackle to have a chance for a quarterback sack to end the half, but he scrambles out for a 40-yard run. We had one of our corners go out, and put in a corner that hadn't played much in our dime package. We didn't cover the switch route for the last touchdown. That kind of switched the momentum a bit.

"We did come out to start the second half and scored on our first possession. We got three, but needed seven. But we scored on our first four possessions, which is good. But then [ODU] went on and that tremendous drive that they put together. It was a 20-play drive and did a lot of good things. There were some key penalty calls there that were suspect that cost us – so the touchdown there was big. And then we gave up that blocked punt. To their credit, they're one of the best block teams in the country. But it got [ODU] the lead (21-20).

"Then we come back and that's where our team grew. Because we came back and we just started to play great defense. I thought Gavin played really well, managed the game well. It was nice to get Calvin [Brownholtz] in there and add an extra gap to our running game. He made some physical runs, and did a nice job at holding on to the football because he got hit hard a few times. We got the lead back and the defense took over. We did a great job finishing the game."

On Southern Miss:
"Now we lead into the Southern Miss game, which now we're in conference road play. We got a lot of practice last year, so we should hopefully be improved in that we played well in three of four of our last road games, but not well enough to win. We have to find ways to get on the road and be competitive, find ways to win games on the road. That's our challenge this week. The challenge starts with great practices. Preparing for a Southern Miss team that has good athletes. They have a first-year coach, good speed at the receivers, good running backs. Their defense has a ton of speed and athleticism on it. It's going to be a tough road game for us to get a victory."

On getting a Conference USA road win:
"To be able to get a road win early in conference is going to be big for everybody. For everybody in the league, it's going to be a big deciding factor down the stretch run of who does well on the road. So, this is our first road test. It's a gigantic game for us."

On the potential of being 5-1:
"I talked to the team after the game. That was my big spiel to them, is that handling prosperity is much harder than handling adversity. So, the challenge to the [team] is to understand that we need to have good practices Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So, don't think you're everything you're not, because we're only as good as we practice. We need to have great practices and each player has to get better."

On Praise [Amaewhule]'s performance this season:
"He's really started to pick it up the last few games. He's really playing to the level that we were hoping and expecting him to play at. He plays with great desire and emotion and he's really taking his game to the next level. He's not taking anything for granted and he loves to practice, he loves to work out, and loves to get himself ready to play. He plays with a ton of emotion. That emotion feeds into his effort he gives on the field. I've been very proud of him."

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