UTEP creates some reason for optimism in win

UTEP's 17-13 win against Abilene Christian on Saturday night had something for everyone.

For the pessimists, who to be fair have a trove of ammo stockpiled over the last decade, there are reasons to see a 2-10 season coming.

UTEP was outrushed, outpassed and more often than not outplayed by an FCS team playing its opener that went 5-7 in 2019, and there are not any more 5-7 FCS teams left on the schedule.

Arguing against Miner football success is usually an easy case to make, and those apt to do that won't be dissuaded by a dicey four-point win.

There is also evidence for, if not a season that ends in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, one that can show real progress in Dana Dimel's third season. A plausible argument can be made for a 4-8 or even 5-7 season that could lay the path out of this morass and on to a sunnier horizon.

At times in the past two years, UTEP has played decent football, but the Miners, when they weren't playing someone terrible or a class under them, never turned that into victories.

For all they didn't do Saturday, they won turnovers 2-0 and that's a winning number.

Up next is a Louisiana-Monroe team that was routed by Texas State, and while UTEP will be an underdog, the Miners won't be a big one. There is a chance for the Miners to be 3-1 going into their bye.

The hope then is that a quick start turns into belief. There is precedent for teams beating poor opposition and parlaying that into something more.

The vibe coming out of the UTEP locker room is one of a team starting to sense a turning of the tide.

"The biggest difference for me, this entire year, is the guys being together, the unity we have," said linebacker and fifth-year senior Stephen Forester. "I've been here a long time, I've seen many times a game like last week (a 59-3 loss to Texas) turns into a season-ender. We don't have that this year. I'm excited to see what happens."

Said Dimel: "I see the hop in these guys' step in the locker room, the camaraderie they are starting to have with each other is a key, key thing. They are starting to believe in each other and pick each other up.

"The defense needs to make stands, they make stands. The offense needs to control the clock to end the game and they both did that. What a great fourth quarter that was for the Miners."

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And consider this from Joshua Fields, a backup running back who played his best at winning time.

"Toughness and resilience, confidence," he said. "We knew we could execute on big-down plays."

Looking ahead, games against Louisiana-Monroe, Rice, UTSA, North Texas and Southern Miss look, at some level, winnable. Perhaps Charlotte and FIU as well.

In terms of what happened on the field, quarterback Gavin Hardison, always the key to this season, played his way into the game and looked solid once he settled in. UTEP will be better when it gets Deion Hankins back and that can happen this week.

The defense started in awful fashion, but as has been a theme of this year, they made the right adjustments and got better. They've played three good second halves this year while improving where they need to improve: pass rush and turnovers.

This was always destined to be a crazy season, and for a team that entered the year 2-34 in a three-year span, a crazy wild-card year can only be a good thing. UTEP is 2-1 all-time when playing in a global pandemic.

To be sure, all of those winnable games are also loseable. At this moment, the Miners don't figure to be a favorite in any of them, though that could change as the season evolves.

The most important takeaway from a win against Abilene Christian is that good things are still on the table, hope is on the table, and that's not always something that in El Paso has lingered into late September.

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Bret Bloomquist can be reached at 915-546-6359; bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.