In fantasy football, there's a term called a "boom-or-bust" player. These are guys that will often score a lot of points one week but then next to nothing the next. These players can both win and lose a bunch of games for whoever has them on their fantasy team. And at a per play level, UTEP's passing offense is the definition of a boom-or-bust unit.

Overall, the Miners average 9.8 yards per pass attempt, the eighth-best in college football. But to contrast that, QB Gavin Hardison leads UTEP to have one of the worst completion percentages in the nation:

Combine the high yards per pass attempt and the low completion percentage, and you have an offense that seems to have a huge play any time they can actually get the ball into a receiver's hands:

But while the booms for this boom-or-bust passing attack are high, the busts can be equally low. The worst outcome for a passing play is an interception, and UTEP has thrown plenty of those so far this year:

Granted, the 6.2% interception percentage has only resulted in 6 INTs on the season to this point. And that's because (like any good fantasy football manager) UTEP knows not to rely too heavily on the boom-or-bust. The Miners only pass the ball on 37% of all offensive snaps, the 13th least in the country.

UTEP has earned a 5-1 record on the season by combining this boom-or-bust passing game with a consistently average running game to create an offense that scores enough points to win.

Or at least scores enough to win against teams at the bottom of the FBS barrel. UTEP currently has the worst strength-of-schedule of any team in college football. So while the Tech defense has not been as impressive as we had hoped this season, we may see them hold the UTEP passing game to more busts than booms Saturday night.

--

Nathan is also a contributor to gtpdd.dog, a lighthearted Louisiana Tech blog. Be sure to check out @gotechplsdntdie on Twitter.