First-year UTEP head coach Scotty Walden met with the media in El Paso on Monday. He discussed several topics, including the season-opener against Nebraska on Saturday, the Huskers’ starting quarterback Dylan Raiola, Tony White‘s defense and how Matt Rhule‘s culture shows up on special teams film.
Here are a few highlights from the Miners’ coach.
Rhule’s jersey-number tradition is having his players vote for the 10 toughest guys on the team. Those 10 players are chosen to wear a single digit, an honor in Rhule’s program. Walden does something similar.
During his Monday press conference, Walden announced that Sione Tonga’uiha, a fifth-year senior nose tackle, will change his number from 99 to 3. Walden’s tradition focuses on defensive linemen.
“We presented the first annual, we call it the Trench Warrior Award, here at UTEP for the Orange Swarm (UTEP defense nickname) to Sione Tonga’uiha, who is a senior from the state of Arizona,” Walden said. “…He’s been physical as all get out and sets the standard for what we want to do on the D-line. We want to build this program, contrary to popular belief, I know we talk about the offense and playing fast and stuff like that, but we want to build this program inside-out starting with a great offensive line and defensive line. That’s part of the culture we want to build up front.”
Counting the 6-foot, 305-pound Tonga’uiha, UTEP will have three single-digit defensive linemen and both earned their numbers back from 2023: Maurice Westmoreland (0) and KD Johnson (7).
Rhule called Westmoreland, a 6-2, 250-pound edge (UTEP’s defense calls its edge position the bandit) an NFL player on Monday. He led the team in sacks last season (7.5) and was second in tackles for loss (10.5). The 6-1, 275-pound Johnson is a fourth-year player and former junior-college product who spent 2021 and 2022 at Kilgore (Texas) Community College before transferring to UTEP in 2023.
“We want to make a legacy here, a history here: if you wear a single digit number and you play defensive line, that’s a bad dude, that’s a guy who’s earned it,” Walden said.
Nebraska announced Dylan Raiola as its starting quarterback on Aug. 21. Consider Walden a fan of the Huskers’ five-star true freshman.
“He might be a freshman, but he’s one of the most talented freshmen I’ve seen,” Walden said. “He was ranked as one of the top quarterbacks, if not No. 1 but No. 2 in the nation, coming out of high school for a reason. This guy throws an elite deep ball.”
Walden said while it’s generally understood freshmen will make freshmen mistakes in their first year playing, Raiola has the tools and mindset to be special right away in his college career.
“Everything I’ve read about him, everything I’ve seen about him, everything I’ve studied on him, he looks like a student of the game, somebody who respects the game,” Walden said. “I cling to guys like that and respect people like that, and he respects the game and studies it. He’s gonna be prepared. He’s as talented a quarterback as we’ll play all year. I think his future is through the roof. He’s got NFL pedigree written all over him. He throws a deep ball that’s fun to study, fun to see. I’m hoping it’s not too fun to see on Saturday because he can sling it. He can extend the play.”
But while Husker fans know who their starting quarterback is, UTEP fans don’t know theirs yet. Walden hasn’t announced one. UTEP’s quarterback battle is between returning starter Cade McConnell and Skyler Locklear, who followed Walden to El Paso from Austin Peay.
The 6-1, 195-pound McConnell played in the final seven games of 2023 and completed 53.5% of his throws (92-of-172) for 1,437 passing yards and six touchdowns against four interceptions. At one point in the season, McConnell was fourth string.
The 5-11, 189-pound Locklear doesn’t have much playing experience, only appearing in four games in two seasons at the FCS level. He does, however, have the advantage of knowing Walden’s spread, up-tempo attack. McConnell has never played a game in it yet.
Walden said he’d make a decision on the starter either Wednesday or Thursday. The coach said it’s been a back-and-forth battle between the two, and he’ll use factors such as completion rate and touchdown drives to help him decide. The coach mentioned both quarterbacks attempt the same number of passes against the defense in camp — 278.
“I’m starting to see a little separation in some categories that matter. I really want to get through the game plan with Nebraska, see how they handle it, see how they handle the first game week,” Walden said.
Walden added that, if the competition is close enough, he wouldn’t be against playing two quarterbacks against Nebraska.
Walden was complimentary of Tony White’s 3-3-5 defense, which returns a good amount of production and finished No. 13 in scoring defense (18.3) last season.
“Defensively, by far in my opinion, I would be shocked if we play a better defense than what we’re going to play,” Walden said. “They return eight starters. It’s by far the most diverse defense that I’ve gone against in my career seeing it on tape. People say it’s a 3-3 stack, and some people think you’re just gonna line up in an odd stack and that’s what it is — no siree. That ain’t it. It’ll be four-down in a heartbeat, it’ll be one-high, two-high, three-high.”
Walden knows White is an El Paso native and thought it was cool someone who spent much of their formative years in the city has gone on to be a power four conference coordinator. Nebraska’s defensive coordinator did some growing up in New York City but graduated from Burges High school in El Paso in 1997.
Walden has two traits he looks for when trying to find out what kind of football culture the opponent he’s playing has. For Nebraska, he took one look at the 2023 film of the Huskers’ kickoff and field-goal block units and got his answer.
“This program’s culture is elite, and I’m talking about Nebraska. Matt Rhule has done a heck of a job. When they run down on kickoff, they run down and it’s like 11 wild banshees running down there, freaking ready to rip someone’s head off,” Walden said. “And then when they attempt to block field goals, for me that’s the first thing I look at when we’re looking at a culture of a team because that’s when adversity has struck, especially on PATs — they just have given up a touchdown. How do they rush when the chips are down? And these guys blocked three kicks last year.”
Then Walden spoke about Ty Robinson and Nash Hutmacher — No. 9 and No. 0, as the coach called them.
“Those two cats, they don’t know any speed except full speed,” Walden said.
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