Dana Dimel begins a rebuild at UTEP, what comes first?

As spring football begins across the state, we’re examining the big questions for each program as they begin their set of 15 offseason practices. Next up: UTEP.1. Is Dana Dimel beginning The Miracle in The Mountains? UTEP has a strong case as the hardest job in college football. The campus is far enough west to drain the recruiting advantages of technically being in Texas. There's little tradition to lean on or facilities to sell. That sounds a lot like Kansas State in the 1980s, where Dimel arrived and helped engineer the formative years of The Manhattan Miracle, when Bill Snyder turned K-State from one of the worst jobs in college football to a perennial powerhouse and two-time Big 12 champion. Dimel took head coaching jobs at Wyoming and Houston before returning back to The Little Apple to help Snyder do it again in The Manhattan Miracle 2.0, and he'll be trying to apply the same principles that helped K-State twice climb out of the abyss. He inherits a UTEP program that was the only winless FBS team in 2017 and has just one winning season (and a 7-6 season, at that) since 2005. Dimel made his career out of building consistent offensive lines and offenses at K-State, but inherits the worst scoring offense in CFB and a group that averaged just 4.09 yards per play, .29 yards per play worse than any FBS team. Rebuilds don't start with a barer foundation. Dimel does have 15 returning starters, but lost a possible first-round pick in guard Will Hernandez, plus quarterback Zack Greenlee and leading receiver Tyler Batson. 2. Did a JUCO already provide UTEP's first building block? Dimel landed an early coup by getting Kai Locksley to sign with the Miners and enroll early. The former Texas Longhorn left to go the juco route and became the national offensive player of the year. He's got a lot of speed, enough to spend time working at receiver in Austin. That type of dual-threat is exactly what made Dimel's offenses great at K-State. Locksley hasn't emerged yet in the spring during competition with Ryan Metz, but he makes it easy to see Dimel might have his first piece to build around and get a rebuild started. And the kicker about good players and good recruits? More good players want to come play with them. It's why any big rebuild needs a great player to kick start it. Is that Locksley? We'll have some clue by the end of spring. 3. Can the defense show flashes? So the defense wasn't as disastrous as the offense, but it still failed to crack the top 100 in nearly every metric. Dimel hired career linebackers coach Mike Cox to run his defense, bringing him from Kansas State. He loses star linebacker Alvin Jones but inherits an experienced secondary headlined by Nik Needham and returns the entire defensive line. Depth will be an issue, but look for Dimel to lean on young players early on as he builds for the future. This will be a Year Zero, and building is all about finding pieces you can rely on in future seasons. More big questions for spring football: