A big part of success on the field is overcoming the inevitable mishaps, and UTEP has more experience at that than it would like this fall as it heads into Saturday's opener with Stephen F. Austin.
The start of practice was pushed back three times and ultimately coach Dana Dimel said the team lost out on nine practices it might normally have before an opener.
"I still don't feel like we're caught up," he said. "I feel like we're closing in but how do you make up for eight or nine missed practices? That's where we are, eight or nine practices short. We're working diligently to close that depth."
As for how his team is dealing with the short fall, "Sometimes handling adversity is one word: patience," Dimel said. "How many times have we all been in adverse situations and the first thing we do is lash out? Then we think we should have been more patient. If anything, this has taught everyone in our organization you have to be patient, you have to work through things."
More: Tickets to UTEP home football games go on sale Monday with capacity of 8,594
Injury report
The only question on UTEP's two deep is the availability of starting corners Josh Caldwell and Duron Lowe. They had stomach aches Wednesday morning that would not normally have kept them out of practice for an extended time, but in this era they need negative COVID tests before they can return.
They are expected to have those results before Saturday's game.
"There's no issues there," Dimel said. "It was just being precautionary, we have to test those guys before we can get them back on the field. We don't take any chances anymore. When someone calls in with any kind ailment we have to test them and it takes time to get the tests back."
Down under punter
After losing Australian punter Mitchell Crawford to a graduate transfer to Michigan State, UTEP again turned to Prokick Australia, landing freshman Joshua Sloan.
Because of travel issues, Sloan a Melbourne native, didn't arrive until two weeks ago and didn't get on the field until last week. He is listed at the top of the depth chart and is expected to be the immediate starter.
By the numbers
On the field, SFA is 27-49 going back to the 2013 season, but the NCAA considers them 0-49 after vacating more than 300 Lumberjack victories across four sports for errors in eligibility certification related to the Academic Progress Report. SFA thus has the nation's longest Division I losing streak.
UTEP is 44-53-5 in season openers, though it is 36-22-3 in season openers at home. They are 60-37-4 in their first home game. That all includes a 36-34 victory in last year's season opener against Houston Baptist in the Sun Bowl.
The Miners have never played SFA but are 9-6 against the Southland Conference, including the win against Houston Baptist last year.
UTEP is one of 14 programs in the country who enters the season with zero starts returning at quarterback.
UTEP will have a total of 13 newcomers on the depth chart when the 2020 season begins on Saturday. The Miners have eight new faces on the defensive two-deep, three on offense and two newcomers on special teams.
About SFA
The Nacogdoches school has an enrollment of 13,000 and is one of four public universities in Texas not affiliated with one of the six university systems.
Athletically the SFA women's basketball team was a national powerhouse in the late 1980s and early 1990s, making six Sweet 16 appearances from 1989-96. The men's basketball program won at No. 1 Duke in 2019 and won an NCAA tournament game against No 3-seed West Virginia in 2014, both of those wins have since been vacated.
Famous alums include musician Don Henley of the Eagles, former Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes, former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips, country musician Rodney Crowell and Joseph W. Kennedy, the co-discoverer of plutonium.
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Bret Bloomquist can be reached at 915-546-6359; bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.
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Miners Gameday Notebook: UTEP still playing catch-up after short fall - El Paso Times
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