In an effort to distinguish UTEP's 24-11 loss to San Jose State from the five losses that preceded it, which isn't the easiest of exercises, there are two items to present.
In the post-game press conference, coach Scotty Walden thought that with some qualifiers, his offense was much improved while the defense was a disappointment.
The qualifiers were that the Miners didn't score enough points and they gave up 11 sacks, which evidently is the most in a single game in the FBS this year, topping the eight UTEP gave up against Oregon State. Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
UTEP attendance plummets at Sun Bowl Stadium
The other notable happening was the announced attendance of 8,576, which was the smallest since
a Thanksgiving weekend game against UNLV in 1981. Perhaps some of that was because 1,229 fans voted for a 7 p.m. kick time in an online poll, which evidently spoke for them and 6,000 so other people but may have been better at generating national headlines than putting people in the stands.
The bigger reason, of course, is that most UTEP fans voted with their feet instead of an online click, and their vote is that a 1-6 football team isn't worth the cost of a ticket and four hours out their Saturday night. To UTEP's credit, it understood that.
"People aren't going to come out if we're not playing well," said Walden, whose job security in some intangible ways can be affected by attendance. "That's anywhere and everywhere I've ever been, I understand that. We're going to stay loyal to our fans."
A big part of the problem, which frankly has been a problem since Mike Price left the first time in 2012, is that UTEP football hasn't been terribly entertaining. Losing 42-35 games 15 years ago was frustrating, but did make for a more exciting evening than 24-11. There are also more things to do now, as the 5,210 who saw the El Paso Locomotive play a soccer game a few miles away at Southwest University Park Saturday night know.
Mostly, and everyone knows this, fans will come back when UTEP is scoring more points than its opponent on a regular basis and that doesn't seem imminent.
Walden feels his team did take an offensive step forward against San Jose State and pointed to the 462 yards while lamenting shortcomings in the red zone he felt were damning. To go through that, UTEP was 1-for-3 in the red zone, which included failures on the first and last drives and a success in the fourth quarter that cut into what had been a 24-3 deficit.
UTEP did consistently drive close to or beyond midfield, which presumably is what Walden meant, but sacks on six of the first seven possessions were almost all fatal to those drives.
"The way we moved the ball offensively − we had 27 first downs − we moved it great," Walden said. "Now let's build off that and go finish drives. Our offense took massive steps tonight. San Jose State is no slouch of a team at all and I thought our offense played a lot freer tonight. Now we have to go score points and defensively we have to limit explosive plays."
Miners give up 11 sacks to San Jose State
What would also help is not giving up a sack once in every four drop-backs. Something Walden said earlier gets to the heart of everything that is wrong with UTEP right now.
"If we can't win the line of scrimmage we're going to struggle to win football games," Walden said. "That's what's happening now. We're struggling there and it's frustrating. It's my job as a coach to find a way to be better there and its our players' job to come to work to get better there."
Play on the lines, particularly on a rebuilt offensive line, was always the key to this season and right now the 1-6 record speaks to how that has gone, and to how difficult it is going to be to turn this around.
UTEP has a well-timed by week ahead of it, a chance to get key players such as quarterback EJ Colson ("upper body injury"), tackle Tyler Roberts ("lower body injury") and tailback Tavorus Jones (shoulder) healthier for the final five games of the season, though keeping Colson healthy with the beatings he consistently takes could prove harder.
At least everyone seems on board, as Walden pointed out his team did compete against San Jose, but right now UTEP is hanging its hat on intangibles such as an offense "playing freer" in the absence of results, which don't seem all that close to coming.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Analysis: Attendance, sacks underscore UTEP football's uphill climb
