On April 12, cars filled the Sun Bowl Stadium parking lot as spectators gathered to witness the football team’s hard work from spring practices.
The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) made quite a few transfer portal moves to try and build up the program to the vision Head Coach Scotty Walden and the athletic department has for the future of Miner football which piqued interest for fans.
Even with the scorching sun, that didn’t stop this squad from coming out with high energy even at warmups.
Team Orange struck first with a redzone touchdown made by senior running back Hahsaun Wilson, and a first promising drive from freshmen quarterback Shay Smith. Team Blue struck back marching down the field in four plays for a senior Kam Thomas rushing touchdown.
A couple drives later, the orange team dumped off a pass to junior tight end Judah Ezinwa, breaking multiple tackles on the play for a 40 plus yard touchdown.
Nearing the end of second quarter, orange scored again from Wilson plowing through multiple defenders to find the zone.
At halftime star UTEP alumni from the blue and orange team competed in challenges to earn points for their respective teams.
Orange alum dominated the halftime games blowing the game open to 38-14.
Team Blue would take the ball out of half and take the ball down the field for a passing touchdown from Skylar Locklear to raise the score 38-21.
Defense on both sides would prove huge later in the second half with stops and by getting another pick.
In the fourth, the blue team picked up some more points on a rushing touchdown.
The final touchdown came with four seconds left, a freshman-to-freshman connection was created from JP Pickles to recent Pebble Hills graduate wide receiver Marcus Torres who hauled in a slant resulting with a 38-35 final for the game.
Though it is a spring game and a team’s whole playbook shouldn’t be exposed, the Miner’s offense took a simple approach of short passes (slant, screens, and dump-offs) with run-pass option action.
An off-season move alluring many fans was the acquisition of quarterback Malachi Nelson, a Boise State transfer.Malachi struggled early throwing with an interception but would later keep it simple looking for short passes and checkdowns.
Others showed potential for the first quarterback position such as freshman Shay Smith in scramble ability but the most poised in the pocket seemed to be Skylar Locklear. with the starting spot for quarterback having competitive room.
An offseason addition in the transfer portal that passed the eye test was senior cornerback Terez Reid, who impressed with his physical play — stepping up to make tackles and showing strong instincts in both zone and man coverage, including a couple of pass breakups.
El Paso natives junior linebacker Jayden Wilson and Torres also had an impressive day.
Miner alum and spectator Everett A. expressed his thoughts on the future of the team.
“I think they’ll be great, they have tons of high energy and technique, and execution is all there. [It] should be a great year–looking forward to it.”
Positives to take on the UTEP spring game are players trajecting well in development.
Offensively short fourth down tries were converted multiple times, and their red zone run game persistently came up big with the help of Wilson and a great offensive line push.
Defensively the secondary seemed to improve vastly, rarely allowing a pass of 10 or more yards down the field.
Miner fans can look forward to seeing how this offense, with the guidance from offensive coordinator Mark Cala, can evolve to see more complex schemes to keep opposing defenses on their heels.
Quite a few tackles were broken for big plays which could pose as a weak spot for the UTEP defense in future matchups.
The Miner’s first home outing will be Sept. 6, against UT Martin where El Pasoans will look to see what this amped-up team can do year two in the Scotty Walden era.
Cameron Mason is a contributor for The Prospector and can be reached at [email protected].
