07 UTEP week Owlook

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Rice-UTEP week

Jarett Dillard sizzled at the Sun Bowl in last year's 38-31 Owl win over UTEP (PTH photo)

Can Owls put together 4 quarters?
UTEP makeup presents
challenge, opportunity

HOUSTON (Nov. 1) -- Standing at 4-4 on the season, 2-2 in conference play, the UTEP Miners aren't exactly the prototypical sacrificial lamb that Homecoming guests get to see visit many American college campuses, but, then again, the Rice Owls are hardly a typical host, and the Institute isn't exactly your typical Football Factory, either.

But that's who'll be facing off at Rice Stadium come 2:00 p.m. Saturday as the Owls try and pick up their first home win of the season, after having gone 0-for-3 in September and October in the friendly confines.

An optimist would pick and choose Rice’s efforts in the fourth quarter of the Marshall game, the third quarter of the Memphis game, the second quarter of the Houston game, and the first quarter of the Southern Miss game.

Owlook

Add it up: the strong start against USM, the flurry of second-quarter offense against UH, the solid third-quarter against Memphis, and the frenzied fourth-quarter comeback against Marshall – string those together to form a single game, and one could say that the Owls, by golly, are ready, now, finally, to come up with a home, er, Homecoming, victory.

UTEP is one team that the Owls typically have tended to battle hard even in the down years, and this week the matchups tend to be a bit less unfavorable to the home team than some earlier contests this season.

The Miners stack up to look a lot like Southern Miss on offense, but with a somewhat softer defense.

In last week’s narrow loss to U of H, the Miners finished the game with 369 yards total offense, but the most of that came via the ground game, which aggregated 193 yards. Most of that yardage, 178 to be exact, came from UTEP senior running back Marcus Thomas, who over his last five games has run for 727 yards (145.4 yards per game average) and nine TDs. Last week's Houston game marked the first time this season that Thomas hasn't reached the end zone, dropping him from first in the nation in scoring to fifth. He is averaging 11.1 points per game.

Against the Coogs, though, the Miners didn’t exactly set the world on fire passing, as quarterback Trevor Vittatoe only completed 8 of 23 passes for 134 yards – although three of those eight completions were to receivers standing in the enemy end zone.

The UTEP man under has had a creditable year thus far, however, throwing for 1,838 yards and 16 scores against three interceptions. His main target on this season has been Jeff Moturi, who has hauled in 41 passes for 659 yards and 10 scores. Against the Coogs. Moturi had a pair of second-half scores, reeling in TD passes of 19 and 35 yards from Vittatoe.

UTEP a team Rice can move the ball on

Defensively, the Miners have taken their lumps thus far this season, particularly against the pass. A total per-game defensive yield of 495.8 yards per game, prodigious enough to whet Owl chops, looks even better when seen that UTEP is giving up 309.8 via the pass. Scoring-wise, the Miners have been giving up an average of 32.9 points per game. Will the Owls need more than that to prevail Saturday? No comment.

The UTEP defense has had six sacks over the last two games, including a season-high four last week against Houston. But the Miners had a total of only four sacks in the first six games of the season, so a return to form in that regard will bode well for Rice quarterback Chase Clement, who had his way with the Miners in last year’s Rice win in El Paso.

“Chase Clement was extremely effective against us last year, and I thought he single-handedly beat us.” UTEP head coach Mike Price said Monday. “We chased him all over the field and he threw the ball in there to Jarett Dillard. Dillard's not fast like Avery from Houston, but he can catch the ball, he never drops it and he always makes a big play.”

In the defensive secondary, the Miners are led by senior DB Quintin Demps, who stands third in school history with 15 career interceptions—good for a first place tie with Boston College's DeJuan Tribble for first among active NCAA Division I-A players.

UTEP head coach Mike Price was coy when quizzed whether he’d use Quintin Demps one-on-one against Jarett this week. "I don't know that right now,” he insisted Monday, “and if I did I wouldn't tell you. It will depend on where they put him. I haven't looked at it enough, to be honest with you. That's something we'll definitely consider, because it would be a great matchup -- Demps vs. Dillard, because they both play the ball so well in the air."

An obsession with the stats of UH’s wide receivers might have cost UTEP the ball game last week, however, because it allowed Coog quarterbacks wide latitude on foot.

“Unfortunately we missed their quarterback four times and he turned them into big plays,” Coach Price said Monday. “He was probably the difference in the game. He was very elusive and ran the ball well.” Hear that, JD?

There are two areas on defense where UTEP didn't fare so well against the Cougars, Coach Price added. “We didn't tackle well in the open space and didn't tackle well on the perimeter. On offense, we had a chance to win the game and didn't take advantage of it”

“ We need to fix the open field tackling and fix the third down situations, and practice more third down situations. We just need to play a little bit better for the Rice game.”

“Fix the third-down situations.” Where have we heard that one before?

For Rice, taking way opportunities for the opponent appears to be the key, and to do that, the Owls need to get back into a larcenous frame of mind, head coach David Bailiff said this week.

DB: similar effort needed to beat similar team

"To beat UTEP it'll be like Southern Miss,” he observed. “We had seven (turnovers) in that game and that’s why we won that football game. Defensively, we've got to create those to get off the field."

“You look at the games we've been in -- we've created takeaways when we've had balls thrown to us. We had none (against Marshall). We've got to start creating takeaways. We had a couple opportunities to pick the ball off. They'd have been hard catches, but we've got to make those. You create those by hard hits. We've got to start hitting people where we're knocking the ball out.”

While all three of Rice’s conference losses have been close enough to cause considerable what-iffing, UTEP’s games this season have tended to go down to the wire as well. Six of the Miners' eight contests have been decided by five points or less, including each of the last four games which have been determined by a total of 10 points.

The Miners have trailed in the fourth quarter in three of their four wins. UTEP has had a lead in the fourth quarter in three of its four losses, and the Miners were tied with Texas Tech, 31-31, heading into the final period. UTEP engineered the second-largest comeback in school history at SMU on Sept. 29, rallying from a 28-7 deficit to nip the Mustangs in overtime 48-45. One of the more bizarre stats of the 2007 season: UTEP is 2-4 when leading or tied at halftime, and 2-0 when trailing.

And here a factoid that might have a bearing on Saturday’s outcome as well: UTEP will be playing its first road game since that Sept. 29 comeback win at SMU, when they meet up with the Owls at Rice Stadium Saturday.

--P.T.H.