That Shay Smith would someday take a star turn in the Sun Bowl had a degree of inevitability to it.
The specifics needed some working out. That Smith would be on the recovering end of a quarterback’s fumble, like he was Saturday night, Sept. 12, against Texas Southern, might not have been foreseen two years ago when he was breaking in at quarterback for the Miners, but Smith’s path to that fumble recovery was straight and clean.
Shay Smith: The son also rises
The Franklin High School alum is the son of one of UTEP football’s all-time greats, running back Paul Smith, an Andress alum who played seven years in the NFL and now owns a West El Paso gym (Get Lifted) with his wife/Shay’s mother Maribel.
The scion Shay,
now a redshirt sophomore getting ready to face Michigan in the Big House Saturday, Sept. 19, grew up in the Sun Bowl. He was a star linebacker for Franklin, then a star dual-threat quarterback who mixed athleticism, instincts, a high football IQ and a focused work ethic that steered him to where he is now.
His Sun Bowl moment was going to come, and in some senses, it arrived when he grabbed that fumble against Texas Southern. That came a week after he was honored as the Luke Laufenberg Hustle Award winner for his play on special teams against Oklahoma.
There figures to be more seasons of Sun Bowl moments as the sophomore begins filling his immense potential.
Playing in El Paso ‘a blessing’ for Shay Smith
“It’s a blessing playing in El Paso, a team I watched as a kid,” Smith said Tuesday, Sept. 15, as he and his teammates prepared for Michigan. “It’s a blessing to play in front of my family and friends, seeing them up in the stands.
“Especially in front of my dad, who has played here before. I’ve seen old clips of him playing in the Sun Bowl against New Mexico State when he scored. That’s a good feeling that I’m playing in front of him.”
What is remarkable about Smith’s ascent is that almost exactly a year ago at this time he was running in a score at Texas as UTEP’s change-of-pace quarterback and at the time was thought of as the Miners’ quarterback of the future. That future wasn’t going to be this year with the arrival of sophomores EJ Colson and Raymond Moore III, and Smith was too good an athlete to stay third team.
That led to the move to linebacker, a position where he was a star early in his high school career at Franklin, and his rise through the ranks — he was almost immediately contributing in the spring and is now playing multiple linebacker positions all over the field — has been stunning.
The position change was discussed with his family and was a natural.
Shay Smith’s position change was a natural
“I was confident in his abilities to play linebacker because he did it in high school and he did well,” his father Paul said. “His sophomore year at Franklin, it was the same thing, he was just trying to get on the field. As a quarterback here, I didn't think that he was going to be able to get on the field as early as he wanted to.
”He's a hell of an athlete. He can play pretty much any position.”
In some ways, Smith feels he’s more of a natural at the linebacker position.
“Find the ball, hit people. It’s as simple as that,” Smith said. “It’s easier than quarterback, where you have to read, find different spots to put the ball. Linebacker is simple: Find the ball, find the guy and hit him. I played bandit (a hybrid linebacker/edge rusher) this past week, it was a new spot for me, I had to protect the edge. I had a good time learning a new position."
As for what he has to learn, “It’s controlled chaos,” Smith said of linebacker. ”Instead of being like a missile, learning how to control my body. It’s not just about getting a big hit, it’s about getting the pressure down, too. In the first game against Oklahoma, I was trying to knock people out, but that’s not the point of the game. The point of the game is to get somebody down and make plays.“
His coach Scotty Walden, who still believes Smith could be a top-caliber FBS quarterback, sees how quickly Smith has taken to linebacker and why.
Scott Walden: Smith ‘can cut it loose and play’
”Shay was very candid about, ‘I want to play, I want to help this team, I want to cut it loose,’” Walden said. “Linebacker is such a great fit for him. It’s his personality. He’s at his best when he’s not overthinking things. (Defensive coordinator Kyle) Beyer has done a great job of putting him in spots where he can cut it loose and play.
“When you have a guy as talented as him, who plays as intense and fearless as him, the last thing you want to do is restrict him with too much in his head. You want to let a guy like that play. We’re moving him all over, from the boundary to the field, inside … he’s flourishing right now. He’s playing hard and playing physical.”
Then this: “I was impressed with how fast he picked it up in spring, it was so natural,” Walden said. “He had 100+ tackles at the position in high school, so it’s not like, ‘Let’s try this guy at linebacker.’ He’s a proven linebacker. He’s going to have a heck of a career. I’m really excited about it.”
Besides the coaching he gets from Beyer and Walden, Smith also gets tips from his father, which makes a certain kind of sense.
“It's amazing to watch him,” said Paul, who rushed for 2,539 career yards (1996-99) as a Miner, eighth in program history before his seven-year NFL career. “As a father, you watch your son do it and try to live vicariously through him. I try to give him as much advice as I can.
“Just from the other side of the ball, linebacker and running back are like two in the same. You have gap responsibilities on the linebacker side, as a running back you're looking for gaps. It's kind of the same, but very different: One has the ball, the other is trying to get the ball.”
Father to son: Stay humble
While Shay Smith has much to live up to, he walks past a portrait of his father every day near UTEP’s locker room in the Durham Center, Paul says he has the right mentality about it.
“I don't worry,” about legacy pressure, Paul Smith said. “He's a little bit different than I was. I shied away from a lot of the spotlight. I was very quiet and reserved and he's more on the other side. He loves the attention, which is good, he loves the accolades that he's going to receive playing at a high level.
”As a father, I just try to tell him to keep his head on straight, stay humble and know you’re playing football for the team and the success of the team.“
By all accounts, everything about his mentality has led him to this success.
“This kid wants to be an NFL football player,” Walden said. "A lot of kids say that but very few kids live it. He lives it. He’s the first one in the facility, he’s in the weight room, he’s getting prepared for practice, he’s taking notes. The kid is a pro in every facet. He’s a young player. He’s got a lot of things to continue to grow and get better, but he’s settling in and he’s going to be a big-time player for us.”
There is a lot of time ahead of him for that to happen and Shay Smith sees the path there.
“I have a lot of stuff to work on: getting off blocks; learning how to move my body in the box; being more patient and letting the play develop,” he said. “Get to the ball, let my team get to the ball as well. It’s having controlled chaos, that’s what the whole position’s about.”
Smith has been playing the controlled chaos position for the Miners for six months now and producing like he’s played it for six years. Where he’ll be as a senior in 2028 has everyone excited.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Franklin alum Shay Smith turns position change into UTEP breakthrough
