LINCOLN, Nebraska — The biggest takeaway from UTEP’s season-opening 40-7 loss to Nebraska was that the Cornhuskers were a rough opening draw for a new, rebuilding team with a first-year coach.
What is going to work Saturday, Sept. 7, against Southern Utah, and more generally against the Conference USA slate ahead, didn’t work against Nebraska, and after a promising first quarter, the power conference team that looks to be returning to prominence did what it was supposed to do in the opener it needed.
UTEP Miners running back Jevon Jackson (4) is tackled for a safety by the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Saturday during the second quarter at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska.
What UTEP needs is an opponent where its offense can get in sync and protect its defense, where its defense can get ahead of the chains and get off the field, and that wasn’t Nebraska. The Miners better hope it’s Southern Utah Saturday in the Sun Bowl and that seems a much more reasonable belief.
As for the Nebraska opener, this is hard to evaluate. Even when UTEP put three plays together and scored to tie the game 7-7, it wasn’t holding on to the ball. The game began with a string of three-and-outs plus one three-and-touchdown, as Nebraska ran more plays (12) on its opening touchdown drive than UTEP had on its first four possessions combined (11).
For most of the game the plays and time of possession were two-to-one for Nebraska, which snowballed into other problems all over the field.
The first priority for the Miners to sort out is their run game, which didn’t get going until matters were well decided. Of UTEP’s nine first-half rushing attempts, two were effective and one of those was a scramble on a pass play. That left the offense behind the chains and left the quarterbacks in bad situations.
The issue, as it was always going to be, was UTEP’s completely new offensive line against a veteran Nebraska defensive line that is the strength of an excellent power-conference defense. UTEP traveled without true freshman Luka Matamoros, who had been their starting right tackle, for undisclosed reasons but regardless, this matchup doomed the Miners’ offense.
The offensive line will match up considerably better in weeks to come and that’s needed to get an evaluation for everything else on offense, including the quarterbacks.
Walden also shouldered blame for the shortcomings of the offense.
“I didn’t give (the running game) enough chance and that’s on me,” he said. “When we couldn’t get drives established it was hard to stay in rhythm running the ball.”
He also pointed out that the type of offense UTEP runs is predicated on getting that initial first down of a possession, that a good start to a drive generates momentum for the next plays.
“When we get the first first down, we’re really hard to stop,” Walden said, and that can’t be disproven because UTEP didn’t get that first first down with any regularity.
What that added up to on the other side of the ball was a defense that was overexposed. Early in the game they put up some resistance, but as they were sent back out over and over again in bad situations, they were not set up for success.
“When you’re on the field that long it’s hard to evaluate how good you were,” Walden said in a summation of many aspects of this game.
UTEP Miners fans greet players after facing the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, Saturday, August 31, 2024. The Cornhuskers defeated the Miners 40-7 in the first game of the season for both teams.
A lower bar of competition can set them up for success, which will be seen soon.
Meanwhile, UTEP took solace in fighting to the end. Against the Cornhuskers’ motivated second team, which is a better gauge of what’s ahead on the schedule, the Miners ran the ball and played defense better and more competitively.
Ultimately, this was a hard game to evaluate because of the disparity in the teams and that’s the easiest thing about this to fix. That starts this coming Saturday against Southern Utah.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: UTEP Miners’ drubbing by Nebraska Cornhuskers hard to evaluate
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Publish date : 2024-09-01 03:57:00
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