Mike Price will return for 2011 season.

[smupony94]

Mike Price will return for 2011 season.


ALBUQUERQUE -- UTEP lost its last game of the season Saturday, 52-24, against Brigham Young University in the New Mexico Bowl, for the most basic of reasons -- BYU was much better than the Miners.

Now a team that loses 26 seniors, most of them of the fifth-year variety, will go about trying to snap a string of five consecutive losing seasons, contend for a first conference title in a decade and try to win its first bowl in almost half a century.

The first, obvious question is will they try to do it with coach Mike Price?

"I hope so," said Price, who has made several recruiting trips in the past few weeks. "I'm planning on it."

When athletic director Bob Stull was asked on Saturday after the game if Price would be back, he gave the same one-word answer he did a month ago: "Yes."

Last week, UTEP announced the signing of four junior college players, hardly the type of move a program about to change coaches would make.

Before the season started, this seemed a natural transition time for the Miners. With all of those seniors, including stars such as Trevor Vittatoe, Donald Buckram, the entire offensive line and safety Braxton Amy leaving, 2011 was logically a rebuilding year.

That no longer seems so certain. First of all, many of the players who were supposed to make this season special were injured and the players of the future filled in.

The defense returns almost everyone, and while it was trounced in every respect by a Cougar team that was peaking at the end of the year, it made noticeable progress in the first year of Andre Patterson's new system.

The offense has to replace Vittatoe, certainly one of the toughest quarterbacks UTEP has had, but simply having someone behind center fortunate enough to have healthy ligaments in his ankles will be a start. Vittatoe was expected to have surgery today.

Best of all, the team's most electric playmaker, Marlon McClure, returns for two more years.

But back to those seniors who are leaving, they are also leaving some things behind that they hope will carry over. They drew up a list of 14 commandments before the season, a code of conduct for the team, and that looks like something that will be passed down. To be entirely fair, UTEP did weather a spate of injuries severe enough to wipe out teams with less leadership. That will be a legacy of these departing seniors.

"I think the younger guys on the team bought into what we were trying to do as seniors and trying to change the program," Vittatoe said. "We took the lead and they followed up, and I think they are going to carry those things over into the next season and the offseason."

Kris Adams, who leaves as the No. 2 touchdown pass-catcher in program history, agreed.

"We tried to start something for the team and we came here with a goal that we wanted to make a bowl, and in a way we kind of started a legacy. We made up some things (the commandments) that are going to help this team in the future."

UTEP has a long way to go before it can play with teams like Brigham Young, but if it can find leaders like the group leaving now, it will at least have a start.

Bret Bloomquist may be reached at [email protected]; 546-6359.

[Dooby]

Homer journalism at its finest.

[Stallion]

Is it really gonna matter. UTEP fans hate Price but look through their history. This is the Golden Age of UTEP Football. Being in CUSA helpd them recruit Texas but they are almost always gonna get leftover recruits.

[Pony_Fan]

this is good news. Hopefully we can kick their butt next year. That loss really hurt.

[Harry0569]

this is good news. Hopefully we can kick their butt next year. That loss really hurt.

Yeah I am going to chalk up this game next year as a W.

[skyscraper]

Agh. I am still pissed we lost to them this year.

[SMU2007]

we threw that game away. part of our woes on the road that we at least partially fixed at ECU. fortunately, the utep loss didn't have any bearing on our season in the end.

[Charleston Pony]

we pretty much owned UTEP until Price arrived. His early success has the disgruntled asking "what have you done for me lately?"

[ALEX LIFESON]

How time flies, seems like it was only yesterday, we were bombarded with all of the great jucos and transfers UTEP were getting every year.

[Pony_Fan]

How time flies, seems like it was only yesterday, we were bombarded with all of the great jucos and transfers UTEP were getting every year.

That was Stallion talking -- bball and fball.

[Stallion]

And if they didn't get those JUCOs and Division 1A Transfers they wouldn't have won anything. They've been to 3 bowls under Price and won 8 games in both his first 2 years. He is probably a better coach than UTEP fans realize. There is no excuse for SMU to lose to UTEP ever if SMU is playing with the same admission Model. SMU is 2-6 against UTEP based largely on the fact that we weren't recruit some categories of players they were. Name a factor that a recruit looks at that would weigh in favor of UTEP. Maybe crowd size. However, they were able to put a representative team on the field because their Model allowed them to recruit the kids that SMU didn't. That inequality ended 3 years ago and the SMU program should beat the crap out of them every year.

[PonyKai]

Picture Skip Bayless saying "Gee, I want to go to El Paso!"

Or Vern Lundquist saying..."There's something about those letters together...U-T-E-P"

[SMU89]

Agh. I am still pissed we lost to them this year.

I'm mad I missed this....

[Big Hoss]

Mike Price will be back? Sweet! Bring on the liquor and strippers!