UTEP football team focuses on itself as Southern Utah awaits

Scotty Walden’s remake of the UTEP football program is just nine months into its first win Saturday night against Southern Utah, and there’s already one area where he’s left his mark.

He’s reshuffled the roster, bringing in a bunch of players from Austin Peay while making the remaining players his players. As a result, Walden has a message for this team, and there are two messages to convey as the Miners approach their home opener against Southern Utah.

First, Southern Utah plays hard.

Second, UTEP is completely focused on itself.

UTEP Miners Focus on Themselves, Not Southern Utah Thunderbirds

This second point is common when an FBS team plays a nominally lower-tier FCS program. The talking point is that they should treat Southern Utah the same way they treated Nebraska.

But that’s not what Walden, and by extension his players, mean. In retrospect, the Miners wish they had prepared for Nebraska the same way they intend to prepare for Southern Utah.

A week ago, they felt like they were too focused on the moment, the environment and the opponent instead of the process.

“First and foremost, the focus is on us,” Walden said. “We’re all focused on our daily process and not worrying about the other team. It’s not because it’s Southern Utah. I feel like I did a bad job in Week 1; we were way too focused on the environment, the opponent, all that stuff.

“We obviously planned the game, we prepared in detail for the game against Southern Utah. We know how capable they are, what a great football team they are.

“For us, where we are, it’s about focusing on ourselves. How we can improve every day, focusing on our details and we know that will lead us to success on the field. That’s the message. The only watchword has been ‘execution.’ Our day-to-day execution of the game plan, embracing it and not leaving any detail untouched.”

So how widely and well has this been communicated to the team? Quite widely and quite well.

UTEP Miners Football Team Stays True to Message

“This week, we’re going to focus on us,” quarterback Skyler Locklear said. “No matter who we play, we have to focus on us and show what we can do. This week, the rest of the season, of course, we have to study our opponent, every opponent, but we have to focus on us and execution. Execution is the name of the game this week and every week from here on out.”

For one man, UTEP echoed that.

“We focus on us,” receiver Trey Goodman said. “A lot of times you focus too much on your opponent and you forget about your details, your practices, the things you’ve been doing since Day 1. It’s really about focusing on us and then moving on to our game planning and our schemes, understanding the team we’re playing.”

“But it starts with ourselves first, internally. Then, once we focus on ourselves and reestablish the habits that we already knew, refreshing those things for this week, then we can focus on the opponent.”

Linebacker Kory Chapman said: “We focus on ourselves. We treat them like a faceless opponent. Week in and week out, we’re going to work to get better, because at the end of the day, we’re all we have, we’re all we need.”

“It’s a faceless opponent right now,” wide receiver Kam Thomas said.

Focusing on yourself is helpful for another reason. UTEP and Southern Utah were both crushed in their opening games, making them difficult to evaluate. It’s safe to assume that both teams will perform better against lower-level competition, but it’s hard to say exactly what that means. So focus on the team you’re looking at in the mirror, not the one on the other sideline.

UTEP Miners football team focuses on execution against Southern Utah Thunderbirds

Delving deeper, Walden’s other word is “execution.” For this part of the game to play well, run blocking will need to improve, which should make it easier for the quarterbacks. UTEP’s pass protection was good against Nebraska but couldn’t move the Cornhuskers’ first-team defense.

“We want to stay on target,” Locklear said. “Our three scoring runs, it was positive play, positive play, positive play. The runs we didn’t score on, most of them weren’t positive. We were behind the posts, not on target. That’s the goal, to stay on the posts.”

Defensively, UTEP highlighted its improved play in the second half, and while it was against motivated second-ranked Nebraska, it’s not necessarily a bad comparison to how the Miners will fare against Southern Utah’s starters.

UTEP was pleased with how it approached the ball, and there is a presumption that it will be off the field for nearly two-thirds of the game. The Miners had a brief defensive streak with three straight stops early in the game, including a three-and-out, as they ran to the ball and gave meaning to their defensive nickname, “Orange Swarm.”

The Miners will be without injured starting linebacker Jalen Rayam, but his replacement Dorian Hopkins came off the bench and now leads the FBS in tackles with 16.

“The pressure on us is to play well and execute as a team,” Hopkins said. “Every game the expectation is to win, nobody would be here if we didn’t expect to win. But the biggest expectation is to execute. We know what type of team we have, what type of people we have in this organization. We want to see each other play well together.”

UTEP Miners: Southern Utah Thunderbirds Are Tough

The team across the line, a year ago at midseason, fell to 2-5 with a 48-45 double-overtime loss to an Austin Peay team that featured Chapman, Locklear, Goodman (who scored the winning touchdown in double overtime), Thomas, of course, Walden and seven other current Miners. SUU responded to that loss by stringing together four wins to close out the year and improve to 6-5, a winning streak that ended last week in Utah.

And that brings Walden to the other talking point.

“I know, this team knows, a lot of these guys that were with us know, the staff knows, how hard this team plays,” Walden said of the Thunderbirds. “When Miners fans come to the Sun Bowl on Saturday, they’re not going to see a team on the other side that’s going to give up.”

“They’re going to see another team that’s going to play hard and they’re going to play hard. This team is as tough as any team we’ve played and they’re going to play hard. It’s not like they’re going to play hard because they’re not very good. They’re good and they’re going to play hard. We’ve had a taste of that. They’re not going to surprise us.”

Let the echoes ring out.

“Southern Utah plays hard, they’re one of the most physical teams we’re going to play against,” Thomas said.

Said Goodman: “They play fearlessly, snap after snap after snap. They have a good motor.”

Hopkins: “These guys play hard. I like a team that plays hard.”

Locklear: “They play hardball.”

UTEP is currently focused on process, on running its system the way it’s supposed to, and how results flow from there.

UTEP Miners quarterback Cade McConnell: ‘I appreciate it’

But on Sunday night at the Sun Bowl, almost exactly six days before kickoff against Southern Utah, quarterback Cade McConnell surveyed the bigger picture around the team.

“Being here for a few years, I had never been to El Paso and I didn’t know anything about it until I came here in 2022,” McConnell said. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve learned how special El Paso is. That’s why I wanted to stand up in front of the team and say that.”

“We have a lot of new faces, a lot of new players, and to express to them how special this community is — I call it a community because it’s a huge city, but it has a small-town feel to it — everybody has a deep sense of El Paso identity and part of that is the UTEP Miners football team. So for us to go out and put a good product on the field, something that these fans and this city can be proud of, is really important.”

“We were there, it was about 7pm, which is when the game is on Saturday, and I said to them, ‘Look around, enjoy. The difference is these stands are going to be full. It’s going to be special. Let’s have a great week of preparation and put something on the pitch that these fans can be proud of.’”

That’s the goal on Saturday night.

You can contact Bret Bloomquist at [email protected]; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.