UTEP Weekly Football Press Conference Transcript: Nov. 21

11/21/2022 4:38:00 PM

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

EL PASO, Texas – UTEP head coach Dana Dimel recapped UTEP's dominating 40-6 victory against FIU and previewed the Miners' contest at no. 25 UTSA on Nov. 26. The Miners and Roadrunners will kick off at 2:30 p.m. CT/1:30 MT in the Alamodome Saturday afternoon.

Head coach Dana Dimel's opening statement
"We'll talk about Saturday's game and then go forward to UTSA. We got our worst stretch of weather that you could get in that little eight-hour period of time leading up to the ballgame. I looked at the weather forecast and had seen that it was going to be the worst stretch in the next week and a half. So, kind of ironic, but I thought our guys handled the setting well and obviously did some things we've been trying to do, which is start fast. I thought it'd be important to win the coin toss, but they get to pick when they're the road team. So, you have no control over that. They won the toss and deferred, which I thought is a big advantage in a game such as that with the conditions and the wind the way it was. But we handled that part of it really, really well. We played a very good first quarter with our opening-drive touchdown. We executed a big third down early in that one and then just ate up almost six minutes of clock there. I think five minutes and 45 seconds on that first drive, which was big too as well. Eating up time and getting a score. Our defense did a great job getting a stop. Then we came back and actually punted it on our next series, which we're still putting into the wind. But Joshua (Sloan) did a tremendous job and drove the ball really well, and we had really good coverage on that. So, I'm hitting that because I thought the first quarter was really important for us to come out and play well. Then our defense got another stop, and we took the lead. That was a big part of the game. But then the big part of the first half was that late flurry there in the second quarter. We always talk about finishing halves, how important we think that is. We did a really good job of finishing off that half and extending the score from 21 to 38 in just a real short period of time there at the end of the second quarter. (Jon) Teicher pointed something out to me this morning. They had 12 possessions, and they had eight three and outs. They had a turnover. They had taken a knee, and they only had two series in the whole game where they got first downs. That's really an interesting side bar to the game. It just shows how well our defense played. They have an offense that's done well against some of the teams in our conference and move the ball really well. So, I was really pleased with the effort of our defense throughout the whole first half and second half. Offensively, in the second half we didn't finish drives the way we wanted to finish drives, but we moved the ball. We played smart, we played as you should with the lead. Then we started from the very first series in the second half, we started putting in all of our seniors that hadn't played yet. As the half went along, we played pretty much 90% of our roster that's eligible to play right now, so I'm really pleased about that. That's what you like as a head coach, and this was a good day for our guys. So that leads us on to the game against UTSA. It's Thanksgiving week, which is always a great week to be playing football. It seems to me football and Thanksgiving go together and always have throughout my career as a coach. So, there's always been big games on Thanksgiving for our program. A lot of times we would play our rivals at places I've been, which is I think a cool thing to have. This is a big game. It's a really big game for us because it gives us the opportunity to get us to .500 in the conference. It gives us an opportunity to get ourselves bowl eligible and get us to the 500 mark. It's against the best team in the conference. So, it's just a lot of challenges for us that way, but it's exciting. To this point through the season, I think we've played best against the best competition. I think that is the big challenge for us this week as we play the best team our conference, can we rise up and play really good football and do the things that we can do best and make it a competitive game that we can find a way to come out and get a victory. So, that's the that's the work and the effort of what we're doing. It's definitely going to be a huge challenge because of UTSA. They're very, very athletic. They're as deep as a team can be on the defensive side of the football. They play a lot of guys, and they've got a lot of good athletic players on their defense. They're really doing some nice jobs. They are a really good first down defensive football team. They do a great job on first down, which is important, and that stat shows up as you study them. It's going to be important for us to try to do well offensively on first down against them. Of course, as our defense prepares for them, their quarterback's just a tremendous, tremendous, tremendous football player. They've got three really good receivers. One of them is out right now, but they've still got three really good ones, as well as the big three and another young man stepped in that's (done) some really nice things for them as well. Filling in for that void, they have a good young running back who I think that is going to be a really good player in our league that's having a good year as well. They have two big tight ends that are really, really athletic guys that get the ball in their hands. One of them is a big guy and he's very athletic. So, there are tons of weapons they have on both sides of the football, and that's why they're a 9-2 football team right now. So, as we get ready for them, they're on a big win streak. We've got to play really good football to be able to have an opportunity this weekend."

On facing UTSA's passing attack
"We're going to face the best passing offense in the league because of the quarterback and the receivers. Those guys are so good at what they do. So, it's going to be really important that we play well. We're young at corner, but we're getting better all the time. Saturday, we started a true freshman and a true sophomore, and they both played well. But they're going to get tested this week for sure. I'm excited to see what they can do and how they can hold up. Some of that's going to come to our front putting some pressure on the quarterback and doing a good job getting to the quarterback and trying to disrupt him a little bit so we don't hang our corners out to dry."

On fighting for bowl eligibility to end the regular season
"Every game's been a fun challenge for us like it has been for everybody in the league. We as coaches, a lot of us are very close. We all understand that every game in this league has been one that anybody has a chance to win. So, I'm excited to have our team to where we are right now and have a chance to get ourselves to back-to-back bowl games. I'm really looking forward to that opportunity. The challenge is there for us, but I'm very much pleased that we put ourselves in a position to be able to do that because it would be a really special feat for us to be able to accomplish that."

On the team's mentality heading into the UTSA game
"I think that we gained a lot of momentum in this (FIU) game. It's such a game of momentum. I think the performance that we put out there is really one to give us an opportunity to go into this game feeling confident having momentum to what we're doing. The two best teams that we played all year have been
Oklahoma and Boise and take out the first few minutes of the Oklahoma game and I think we played those two games pretty well. So, that's what I'm hoping our team will do. Not hoping, I'm expecting our team this weekend to rise up to the challenge, take the momentum from the game last week and use that momentum and carry it forward and play a really well-executed football game. Do what we did last weekend, and that's be solid in all three aspects and don't have very many unforced errors. That was really critical. We had that one turnover there that we need to eliminate. It's going obviously be really nice to win the turnover margin in this game. I think when we do that, we have a good chance against anybody that we play against."

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