It is a whole lot easier predicting the winner than the score here. UTEP started well enough this year, but has collapsed somewhat recently and IMO is ready to give in this week - a short one. But there is still fight in them. One thing I like about Coach Prices teams is that they will strike you in the mouth. I think their QB, who is a stationary pocket thrower is going to be assaulted by our interior DLinemen. Their only chance IMO is to get turnovers and with our run game like it is, that will be hard to do. They'll probably stack the box to no avail and give some easy throws, even our inexperienced QBs can make IMO. I forsee at least a two TD lead for TU at the half. I also see us getting some valuable PT for the non-starters by the end of the third quarter. Thats always a good thing.
TU - 41
UTEP -21
IMO.
UTEP is a team that we've looked past before and they've bitten us in the rear... but I don't see a Blankenship coached team looking past anyone. UTEP seems to have gotten worse as the year as progressed. And their weaknesses seem to play into our strengths - specifically having a non-mobile qb who likes to sit in the pocket (hope that adds up to a lot of sacks tomorrow night). We should also be able to run on them - easily.
All in all, it should be a good win to get us bowl eligible.
Something to the effect of 45-17
I agree that UTEP has risen from the dead a couple of times when we played them in the past and they still could I guess but as has been said, a pocket passer plays to our strength and hopefully several sacks and interceptions could help us. I do think UTEP as well as every other team the rest of the year will put 8 players in the box, which makes it very difficult to run even if most of them get blocked, just a lot of bodies to get through. With that in mind, I don't see a real high scoring game unless we return a couple of interceptions for TD's.......... or pass a lot on 1st down when they expect us to run. Hopefully Tulsa 24...UTEP 17