The Associated Press No. 12 Cougars travel to West Texas Saturday for their first Conference USA game of the season. UTEP will be waiting, still steaming from a 64-7 trashing by No. 2 Texas. The game wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.’
The Miners intercepted an early pass by Texas quarterback Colt McCoy and returned it for a touchdown, temporarily tying the game at seven, but it was all downhill from there. UTEP’s offense eked out 53 total yards on 51 plays and never came close to scoring.
‘They pretty much inflicted their will against us,’ junior running back Donald Buckram said after the game.
UTEP quarterback Trevor Vittatoe threw four interceptions and also lost a fumble while completing just 7 of 21 pass attempts. UTEP’s running game wasn’t much better, tallying a mere nine yards as the offense was forced into passing with such a large deficit.’ The defense may have been even worse, surrendering over 300 yards passing and another 300 yards rushing.’ Texas also had a kickoff return for a touchdown.
Now UTEP is hoping to learn from the loss as they begin conference play.
‘I thought after this game that the season was over, but it’s not,’ UTEP head coach Mike Price said at Monday’s news conference.’ ‘I had to look at the schedule and remind myself that we have eight games left on our schedule.’ If we play well, we can have nine or 10 games remaining.
‘But for sure this is the beginning of the season, and if we’re going to learn from our mistakes, we’re going to get better and we’re going to get on the winning side of the ledger.’
Though this weekend is homecoming for UTEP, things won’t get any easier as they host the Cougars, who will enter El Paso with one of the hottest offenses in the country.
UTEP knows they will need to be able to run the ball and control the clock against the Cougars’ quick-strike offense.
‘Ball control will be an emphasis,’ Price said.’ ‘The longer you keep the Houston offense off the field, the better.’ They have tremendous quick-strike potential.’
Though he acknowledged the need to run well, Price was vague about whether or not UTEP would change much of their plans offensively for Houston.
‘We may change the game plan.’ It may depend on who plays at the running back and quarterback position(s),’ Price said.’ ‘We’ll probably hold that for awhile, and let Houston try to figure out what kind of an offense we’re going to run.’ If it isn’t broken, you don’t have to worry about fixing it.’ Well, we’d better do some fixing.’
It won’t be easy to fix what’s broken against a team as good as Houston.’
