UTEP laments possession gap in loss to Nebraska football

UTEP left Memorial Stadium disappointed but not discouraged Saturday, taking a pair of positives from the 40-7 loss to Nebraska.

One of those positives was an early fourth quarter the Miners’ battered defense turned Nebraska away from a first-and-goal at the 6-yard line, forcing a field goal.

Some teams, UTEP players said, would have given up trailing 37-7. But the Miners fought.

“The scoreboard says different, but you turn on the film, we played hard,” said defender Kory Chapman. “We had a big goal-line stand, held them to a field goal. We were already down; we just didn’t quit.”

The other positive was UTEP’s second drive of the game when the Miners put together four plays that covered 63 yards and ended with a 38-yard game-tying pass from quarterback Skyler Locklear to Kam Thomas.

“Our game template is to get the first down on the drive, we had a first down slant to Goodie (receiver Trey Goodman),” Locklear said. “That’s really what started it, just getting into our rhythm. We had a great run that got them on their toes. When we have our tempo and we don’t hurt ourselves with penalties or missed assignments or bad reads, when we can have the defense on their toes, and when they’re on their toes like that. That’s when we attack.”

The Miners, however, didn’t get Nebraska on its toes for the remainder of the game. UTEP gained 78 yards in the first quarter, but only 80 more in the next two quarters combined.

UTEP converted a single first down in the first three quarters of the game, saw numerous penalties thwart drives, threw two interceptions and yielded an early second quarter safety when Nebraska’s Ty Robinson tackled running back Jevon Jackson in the end zone.

“I think everybody expected to win,” UTEP coach Scotty Walden said. “But you play a great team like Nebraska… You’ve got to execute. And we did not execute.”

That lack of offensive execution left the Miner defense on the field for far, far too long.

“They obviously had double the time of possession, which normally is a stat I don’t care about,” Walden said. “But if you’re not scoring points, then it matters a lot. So, I think they had close to 80 plays to our 40 plays, or 38 plays. It was maybe as bad as I’ve ever seen.”

Even with that overwhelming difference, Walden said the Miner defense got better against the run in the second half and had the goal line stand, that showed they never gave up and continued to play hard.

The offense, he said, showed some glimpses of what it could be, especially on the quick scoring drive that illustrated the attack he brought to El Paso this year.

At 34, one of the youngest head coaches in the country, Walden exuded optimism in his post-game remarks after he lost his first game as UTEP coach.

The Miners, he said, displayed enough that he is confident they’ll get better as the season goes along.

“As a head football coach, you’ve got to sit back and you got to look at it all,’ Walden said; “ I saw a lot of really good things today that, you know, lead me to believe things that we can build on. We’re going to be able to build off this and go forward. But congrats to Nebraska and Coach Rhule on a great game. Well played.”