Tomorrow evening, the Bulldogs return home to the Joe to take on the UTEP Miners at 6:30 pm on ESPN2. It's been a long time since the Miners beat the Bulldogs. How can Skip and the Dogs keep the streak alive?
1) Possession is 9/10 of the win
UTEP is usually such a bottom feeder that my three keys would be something like "Don't be bad," "be good," and "pls." But this year, the Miners have started 3-1. Do you know how far you have to go back to find three UTEP wins before this season...? Well, they beat HBU last August, Rice in November 2018, and... North Texas on November 26, 2016. Twenty-sixteen! Okay, now on to the actual key: UTEP has played some pretty bad teams this season and won three games. They did that largely by running the rock, and more importantly, running the clock. In fact, UTEP ranks fifth nationally in Time of Possession with 35 minutes per game. In their 31-6 drubbing of ULM a couple weeks ago, they held the ball for 39:36, which is absurd! For Tech to win this game, they'll need to actually let Luke Anthony get on the field to score some points. It's up to both the offense and the defense to not let UTEP just sit on the ball like some sort of golden egg.
2) Third's the word
So far this season, Tech's offense has been pretty decent at converting third downs. We convert on almost half of all attempts (.463), which is good for 25th best in the nation. Unfortunately when we faced a tough third down defense in Provo last weekend (BYU has the #3 third down D in the nation), we didn't do so hot. We beat BYU's average, but fell well short of our own, converting only 5 of 14 attempts. This week, the Bulldogs face another defense that loves to get off the field. The Miners have the #4 third down defense, and have only allowed a conversion on ten of 41 attempts so far this season. If Tech wants to win, we'll need to see that ratio decrease for UTEP.
3) The One-Two Punch
UTEP is a team that likes to run the ball, as their possession stats show. However, QB Gavin Hardison isn't afraid to chunk the ball when it's needed. That's bad news for anyone who's watched Tech's secondary... I'll say... "Struggle" so far this season. In slightly better news, UTEP really only has two receivers who we need to stop: Jacob Cowing and Justin Garrett. Cowing leads the team with 22 catches on 36 targets, 377 yards, with a long of 82 yards. Garrett comes next with 19 catches on 29 targets, 287 yards and the team's lone receiving TD of the season. If Tech can cover these two guys, there's really no one else on the team to worry about. The next best receiver has just 6 catches in 4 games. Making UTEP one-dimensional will be a recipe for success tomorrow night.
--
Evan is also a contributor to gtpdd.dog, a lighthearted Louisiana Tech blog. Be sure to check out @gotechplsdntdie on Twitter.
