UTEP coach Dimel impressed with Northwestern despite its losing streak
UTEP coach Dana Dimel doesn’t buy the notion that Northwestern is bad.
The Wildcats host UTEP on Saturday on a 12-game losing streak after an offseason of turmoil and remarkably they are a one-point home underdog, marking the first time UTEP has ever been favored to beat a power five school.
What Dimel sees is a power conference team, one he feels is dramatically improved from the 1-11 team of a year ago.
“They are a very hungry team, they play good football and they are very competitive,” Dimel said at his Monday press conference. “They have a lot of talent they’ve brought in they didn’t have last year. Just watching them play they are a lot better team than they were last season.
“I’m looking at the strategies of what it’s going to take to win this football game and the strategies are this: We’re going to have to play really well. Our only chance of winning is that we go play really good football or they’ll beat our pants off. They are a good football team.
“That’s all I’m looking at. ... They are going to be a true test for us. They don’t have many weaknesses across the board.”
Specifically, “They are a Big 10 team with a lot of physical, physical football players,” Dimel said. “They are a typical Big 10 team. You look at that game against Rutgers (a 24-7 Northwestern loss), it was a physical contest both sides of the ball, both teams pounding on each other. When you face a Big 10 team, you face a bunch of big, strong, powerful athletes.”
UTEP’s last victory over a power conference school was the 14-7 win against Ole Miss in the 1967 Sun Bowl.
UTEP eyes improvement on special teams
Dimel is also looking at UTEP and there is much to like as the Miners take
the first of two consecutive road trips to power conference schools. The point of emphasis last week was improving on third down on both sides of the ball and the Miners did that exceptionally well.
The point of emphasis this week is improving on special teams and cutting down on the 10 penalties, five of which were personal fouls.
“I wasn’t happy with our special teams and we made some changes with that as far as personnel goes to get some more of our talented players on the field in special teams,” Dimel said. “I wasn’t pleased with the 10 penalties, we didn’t play the way we needed to play in certain situations.”
Offensive efficiency
He was certainly pleased with the offense, as UTEP improved to 10-4 when Gavin Hardison completes 60% or more of his passes. He was 10-of-13 against Incarnate Word and a key to duplicating that against Northwestern will be the emergence of UTEP’s receiving depth.
“I would think we’d be better than 10-4 when completing 60% of our passes, that’s what we need to do to be good,” Dimel said. “Jeremiah Ballard has to step up and compliment the other two guys (Kelly Akharaiyi and Tyrin Smith). Jostein Clarke helped us in this game.”
Thirteen pass attempts against 50 rush attempts is also a winning number for UTEP, though that will be a hard match against Northwestern. Dimel said ideally the Miners would like to run 65% of the time, that’s presumably what they would like to do against Northwestern, but the way the Incarnate Word game played out dictated going run heavy.
“We could have thrown anything we wanted to,” Dimel said. “The run opened up the passing game so much, they had nine guys in the box and they still couldn’t stop the run. That was a game where the run set up the passing game.”
Traveling strong
UTEP is also going to draw on its first game this year, the loss to Jacksonville State, which also involved a long trip to adverse conditions.
“After our first game, that trip to Jacksonville, Alabama tested our team in every form or fashion a road trip can test you in,” Dimel said. “Whether the heat, the trip, the facilities, all the things we had to deal with, limited locker room space, sweating more in the locker room than we ever did in any practice, all those things made us a better team and got us tested with the travel.
“Hopefully that experience will help us as we travel.”
That was the silver lining from the opening loss and now UTEP looks to use that as it seeks a two-game winning streak.