Ivan Pierre Aguirre

UTEP Weekly Football Press Conference Transcript: Oct. 24

10/24/2022 5:17:00 PM

AUDIO: https://bit.ly/3N3EbMZ

EL PASO, Texas – UTEP head coach Dana Dimel recapped UTEP's 24-21 thrilling victory over Florida Atlantic and previewed the Miners' contest against Middle Tennessee on Oct. 29. The Miners and Blue Raiders will kick off at 7 p.m. MT in Sun Bowl Stadium.

Head coach Dana Dimel's opening statement
"Okay. We'll get started. We'll talk a little bit about last week's game and then go into the Middle Tennessee ballgame and revisit any of the highlights from the game and talk about where we stand right now. So just looking at where we are right now after the game, as you get time to go back and study the film again, there was a lot of really positive things. The thing that I was most proud of is that our guys really hung in there, handled any of the adversity that comes through a game and handled it really well. In a lot of ways, we did a lot of positive things in all three segments of what we did as a football team. Coming back from a third- quarter deficit like we did is really probably the highlight of the ballgame. Again, as I mentioned before, just hanging in there and working together to get a win and securing a home field advantage for our team, which is really big. We've been a really good team at home over the last three years. I didn't know the stat, but we're 10-2 over the last three years in the Sun Bowl. So that's probably a pretty historic run in the Sun Ball over the last three years. So, (I'm) really excited about that. That's going to show up again this weekend as we move forward to the Middle Tennessee game. I really liked the way our defense played throughout the game (against Florida Atlantic). I thought Florida Atlantic, going into the game, had one of the best run games we had seen all year. Their offensive line is big and athletic, and they have three really good backs that create different issues because they're so fast. They have a lot of team speed and of course we knew the size and speed they had at receiver position too. So, I thought our defense played extremely well throughout the game, even when they got their drives. One of them we were missing the coverage because we one of our players had to leave the game for a couple of plays and we had a quick substitute. We missed a coverage and then they hit a run on the very next play where we just missed a gap. But again, I thought our defense played well all throughout the whole ballgame, held them to not a whole lot of yards. I thought our offense did a lot of really positive things. The main thing that we did offensively was secure the ball again for 35 plus minutes. Any time you do that, a team like Florida Atlantic didn't have a whole lot of football plays to run. I thought their schemes were really good. I thought they had some really good schemes and some good things with what they were doing offensively, but our defense did a good job. The things we still have to get better at is we need to finish drives with touchdowns. You're not always going to do that. As I mentioned before, you're going to have some drives where you do have to settle for a field goal. Sometimes field goals are not the best, but they're better than coming up empty, which we got to definitely eliminate coming up empty anytime we're inside the red zone. (Another thing) we are working to get better on is the big turnover. You know, pick six. Those are a real game changing. For us to overcome that was really pretty good accomplishment from our football team. Unfortunately, I felt like Rey (Flores) was interfered on that and Rey is not a guy that won't ever not tell things the way it is. But he said, 'Coach, when I went up to go for the ball, my whole inside arm was being detained and grabbed and I couldn't reach but for with one hand for the ball' and it got tipped and picked. So that was really unfortunate to have that play, but fortunately it did not affect us and we did the things that we needed to do. They got the last drive at the end. Talking about the controversial play, the effort that we gave on that from Praise (Amaewhule) and everybody up front has just been repetitive throughout the year. Right when they scored, we're all thinking, well, it's going to be 21-21, we got to go down and score. But no, it's not because we get the great effort and execution from our defensive rush on the PAT and get the block. Obviously, it (helmet coming off on block) was something that all the years of coaching, I've never had that happen. These officials who are experienced officials have never had it happen. The first explanation to me was that we're not going to get the two points, but they're not going to get to retry the kick so you're still going to have a lead. Then they went to the center of the field and had further conversation and decided that they were going to re-kick it. As I found out since, I don't know if that's public or not, if it's been made public yet or not. The head of conference officials was trying to reach out and let those guys know, but he couldn't get to them, in time, that they shouldn't been able to kick the ball. He obviously has said that was the wrong ruling. I'm not judging or being judgmental. It's just something that none of us have come across. But unfortunately, they got to kick it again and they shouldn't have got to kick it again. We should have had a one-point lead and the ball, which would have changed the whole dynamics of the last 4 minutes and 30 some seconds, because after two first downs, we could have killed (the clock) for the opponent. So, it changed the aspect of the game, but it gave us a lot more drama, right? A lot more drama and excitement. Gavin (Baechle) came through and hit a great kick there. He had a really good ball game. Again, I thought our special teams did a lot of good things as well, continue to do some good things. We weren't perfect in any aspect of what we did anywhere, but we sure found a great way to win a football game. That gets us back to a really good spot. We're two games away from being bowl eligible. Right now, we're on a good roll. We started off the season 1-3 and we've recovered with a good run here over our last six ball games.We've got ourselves playing really good football right now and doing some fun things for everybody to come see and watch us play. We're in the hunt to get to a bowl game for back-to back-years. Obviously, we need to win ballgames to get to that point. But it's still a lot of excitement going into these last four games. We're looking forward to sporting our Texas Western (jerseys) and defending the home turf in again, which I'm excited about. I know Teich (Jon Teicher) is excited about that, too. He's urged me to do that. I was still debating whether we were going to do it or not until Teich made the call. It's funny because my wife got to see the guys leaving the locker room up close. She's like, 'gosh, I've never seen those jerseys up close before. Those things are really cool.' The guys really enjoy playing in them."

On facing Middle Tennessee
"We need to have a great ballgame against Middle Tennessee. Middle Tennessee is a team that has played a really difficult schedule. The teams that they've played in our conference are really good football teams and so they have lots of team speed. I mean, all you have to do is go back and watch their game against Miami where they just got after it from the very get go and won decisively against Miami. They're one of the best teams in the country at causing turnovers. I think they're in the top 10 in the country in turnovers caused but they've also had three games where they've had a turnover on the offensive team's first possession that they're going against. They can make a dramatic impact on the game early. They're a very good athletic defensive football team with really, really good team speed across the board. They have some marquee players on the defense that we definitely are aware of and have to account for at all times. Offensively, they got receivers that have some really big play potential and can do some really good things. Middle Tennessee has been a strong, strong opponent in our conference for many years. Rick Stockstill is a really good friend of mine and he does a tremendous job. Rick is in his 17th season there at Middle Tennessee and is doing a great job again with this year's football team. So, again, it's like I've said every week, every game is a challenge. Every game goes to the team that plays the best, right? So that's going to be our challenge is to get out and play well. We encourage all the fans to get out for Homecoming We're having it at night to help make sure they can get to the ballgame. We're doing a lot of neat things with some Halloween celebrations and some other bonus packets that you can get as far as ordering tickets. So we urge everybody to get out. The Miners are playing good football. So come see your Miners play."

On being able to string together some victories down the stretch
"We need to try to fix some of the things that we need to fix that have kept us from winning the games that we have not won. This is going to be a really big game to not turn the ball over, to win the turnover margin because they're so good at causing turnovers. So that's going to be really important for us. They're a team that can score points. They're a high scoring offense. They run a lot of plays. So, there's going to be more plays in the game than what you might typically see in one of our games because we try to minimize that. So, for us it's going to be important that we can continue to control the clock on them. The flip side of that is not give up big plays. That's going to be really important. Those are that the things that will help us with our consistency of what we're doing because our yards per game defensively is really good. Our yards per game offensively, we continue to climb over the last four or five games. So, I think we just need to continue to trend the way we're trending and be really good at our completion percentage. The games that we've played well, we haven't turned the ball over much. We've been really good on our completion percentage, and we've run the football well. So, those are the things that will allow us to have the consistency we need to win some games down the stretch."

On how important the win against Florida Atlantic was
"It's a big win. It propels us. It gets us back to where we need to be. When you look at the start of the season and you look at the games that we've had to play, some we probably should have lost and some we won that we weren't picked. So, this got us back in a fighting position to get us to a lot of what our goals were. That's the positive part of it. The other part of it is that it's just one win, it's just one. We've got to continue to do things well to get to get another win now. Because now you just move on to the next one. So, enjoy it. You know, it's great. It's good for us, but now you've got to move on, and we've got the same type of challenge coming up this week. A very similar team. Different but similar as far as the level of ability they have. Whoever plays the best is going to win this game. Right? That's how it's going to be for us down the stretch here in every game. We've got four more games left and every game is very winnable for us."

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