The Kansas Jayhawks will travel to play on the road for the first time this season, heading to El Paso, Texas to face the UTEP Miners. The Miners are lead by a coaching legend, Mike Price, who is entering his 5th season as the head coach for UTEP. Price is best known for his short stint as the Alabama head coach and for his 14 years as the head coach at Washington State, where he led the Cougars to three top 10 finishes and two Rose Bowl appearances. He is 30-30 in his five seasons at UTEP and has led the Miners to 2 bowl appearances.
The Miners are coming off of a disappointing home loss to the University of Buffalo, dropping their opener 23-17. It was a hard fought game between two good offensive teams and the Miners actually out-gained the Bulls, 372-309, and had a 3 minute advantage on the time of possession as well. Their main issue was their inability to stop the Bulls in the 2nd and 3rd quarters on defense, with the Buffalo jumping out to a 23-7 lead before the Miners made a furious charge to get back into the game.
Though UTEP had a bad week against Buffalo, there is still plenty of reason for optimism going into the Kansas game for them. They return their star junior quarterback, Trevor Vittatoe, who happens to be the schools second all time leader in both passing yards and touchdown passes, behind NFL quarterback Jordan Palmer. He had a breakout year last season for the Miners, throwing for 3,278 yards and tossed 33 touchdown passes en route to being named the Miners offensive MVP. He is elusive and has good size at 6′2″ and weighs in at 215 pounds. He had a poor game against the Buffalo Bulls in last season’s opener as well, before rebounding with 267 yards against the Texas Longhorns and the top defense in the Big XII.
The Jayhawks should be able to take advantage of the Miners defense, which ranked 115th last season and gave up over 470 yards and 37 points a game in 2008. The Miners do run a hybrid 3-4 defense with a safety often playing in as a rover/nickel back, with Da’Mon Cromartie-Smith playing that position. Cromartie-Smith had a monster game against Buffalo last week, recording 18 tackles as well as forcing a fumble and recording 1 tackle for a loss. Todd Reesing and the Jayhawks will need to account for Cromartie-Smith if they plan on moving the ball effectively.
UTEP Miners 0-1 2009, 5-7 in 2008Losses of Note:
Buffalo 23-17 2009 Texas 42-13 2008 Tulsa 77-35 2008Wins of Note:
University of Central Florida 58-13 2008 SMU 36-10 2008 Tulane 24-21Quote of the week by Mike Price:
“Kansas is really something. They’re not just a lot better than Buffalo, they’re a whole lot better than a bunch of teams in the country. Their quarterback is Fran Tarkenton. He is the best quarterback ever to play at Kansas. He is spectacular, he is exciting, and he is from Texas — just like a third of the players on their team. And their receivers are 6-3, 215 or 220 pounds, I mean they are studs. They are really great looking guys. Their running back Jake Sharp reminds me of Tyler Ebell. He is a fast, slashing runner. He is tough. He and [Todd] Reesing are running that offense. [Kerry] Meier is a good looking wide receiver and a great athlete. Those three guys make their offense go. Their best NFL prospect is [Dezmon] Briscoe, who was suspended last week but will be back for us. On defense their ends are 6-5, 260 or 270 pounds. They’re big, they’re rangy and they’re fast. They have big studly linebackers. Justin Springer is Jeremy Springer’s brother. He’s projected to start in the two deep, but he pulled a hamstring and only played half the game versus Northern Colorado. I don’t know what his status is for Saturday. Their linebackers are really strong, physical-type players and their best guy, Darrell Stuckey, leads the defense. He’s a safety, a kickoff return guy, a great hitter and a pro prospect. We haven’t really analyzed the kicking game yet, but from what [special teams coordinator] Jeff Banks tells me it’s really good.”
Outlook:
Kansas should be able to dominate the Miners on the ground, especially considering that the Miners gave up 150 yards on the ground to Buffalo. Assuming the Jayhawks are able to establish Jake Sharp and Toben Opurum on the ground, it should force the Miners to play 7 men in the box and should hopefully open up the passing game. The key for the Jayhawks defense will be their ability to put pressure on Vittatoe and disrupt the passing lanes for him. If he gets into a rhythm early, it could end up being quite a shootout between two gifted offensive teams.
