Craven: An early preview of UTSA vs. UTEP

[caption id="attachment_19081" align="alignright" width="300"]Photo by Mary Scott McNabb Photo by Mary Scott McNabb[/caption] UTSA and UTEP face off in El Paso this weekend and there is no love lost between the two programs. Calling the two schools rivals is hard right now because the Roadrunners are still a newish program and UTEP is so far from San Antonio, but the energy and back-and-forth on social media proves the two fan bases really want this win. A quick look at the records for each team would indicate the Miners being a favorite at home, but it is actually UTSA that will enter the game as the gambling favorite. UTSA is 0-4 on the season, but those losses came to Arizona, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Colorado State. There may not be another non-P5 program in the nation that faced a four-game out-of-conference stretch like the Roadrunners and that should make them battle-tested entering the UTEP game if UTSA is healthy. On the flip side, UTEP is 2-2 with losses to Arkansas and Texas Tech before a two-game winning streak was started with close victories over New Mexico State and Incarnate Word. The biggest news for UTEP this season was injury, unfortunately. The Miners entered the season with a lot of momentum based off last year, the job head coach Sean Kugler did in 2014 and the return of star running back Aaron Jones. Jones was lost to injury in the Texas Tech game, however, and UTEP hasn’t looked the same on offense since. In fact, UTEP’s leading rusher is still Jones, who had a total of 32 rushing attempts in the first two weeks and was averaging over 100 yards per game against P5 schools. That puts a lot of pressure on UTEP to find other players to make plays on the ground because the passing game is still a question mark due to injuries and inexperience at quarterback. UTSA saw a lot of things go right in a two-point loss to Colorado State last week. Jarveon Williams set school records for longest run and most yards in a single game. Also, the defense played relatively well considering the Roadrunners were missing three starters on that side of the ball from the opening day roster. The two teams don’t like each other. The two fan bases definitely don’t like each other and the two teams each earned road wins over the other in the past two seasons. Saturday in El Paso should be fun.