Miners Hope to Strike Gold With a Bowl Bid

EL PASO, Texas — Those who have witnessed the 3-year rebirth of Texas El Paso’s football program might call Coach Bob Stull the team’s savior. But his remarks last week show he doesn’t make a bad prophet, either.

Commenting on the Miners’ 42-9 victory over New Mexico State in which the Miners committed 5 turnovers after making only 8 in their previous 8 games, Stull said, “If we play like we did (against New Mexico State), we’ll get beat by 50 (versus Wyoming).”

Final score: Wyoming 51, UTEP 6.

The 45-point losing margin is close enough to prove Stull at least had the right idea and cause. The Miners lost two fumbles for the second consecutive game after losing just one in their first eight.

“I didn’t mean that quote to turn out so accurate,” Stull said jokingly this week. “Believe me, that wasn’t the plan.”

With that in mind, Stull said he is making no predictions about what to expect when his Miners face San Diego State today (12:30 p.m. PST) in a Western Athletic Conference game in the Sun Bowl.

Stull has good reason for such caution. Not only is his team coming off a loss that knocked it out of the WAC title race, but the Aztecs (2-7, 2-4 in WAC) are on the rebound after having defeated then-No. 20 Brigham Young, 27-15, last Saturday night. The victory ended a 6-game Aztec losing streak and was the team’s first victory since defeating Air Force, 39-36, in the second week of the season.

“We’ve always had a healthy respect for San Diego State,” Stull said. “There probably isn’t a team in the league with better team speed than they have. You have to take seriously any team that has beaten BYU and Air Force, which traditionally are the two premier teams in the league.”

That has been true of much of the WAC’s recent history, but Stull and his UTEP team are one of those programs that is helping to broaden that view. In the 3 seasons since Stull took over, the Miners have won 19 games. That is as many as they won in their previous 12 seasons. Their 8 victories this season with 2 games left to play are their most since the 1965 team finished 8-3.

There even is talk of the school’s first bowl bid since the 1967 team beat Mississippi, 14-7, in the most recent of the Miners’ eight Sun Bowl appearances. Scouts from the Independence Bowl, to be played Dec. 23 in Shreveport, La., will be on hand today.

It is a long way from the not-so-long-ago time when the Miners (8-2, 4-2) were an easy target on the Aztecs’ and just about everyone else’s schedule. Until last season when the Miners beat them, 34-33, for their first victory in San Diego, SDSU had won 7 in a row and 11 of 12 in the series that began in 1974.

“I really didn’t know what to expect when I came into this place,” said Stull, who coached 2 seasons at Massachusetts before taking over the Miners. “I stated that my original goal was to win enough games to get a contract extension, and based on what had happened (six coaches in 14 seasons at UTEP), that didn’t look too good.”

But Stull has turned the Miners around from 1-10 in 1985 to 4-8 in 1986, 7-4 in 1987 and 8-2 so far this season.

He has built the resurgence around quarterback Pat Hegarty, tailback John Harvey and an opportunistic defense. The Miners are only fifth in the conference in total defense, allowing 418.0 yards per game, but they are fourth in the country in turnover margin.

UTEP has forced 31 turnovers while making 15 of its own--this despite committing 7 in its past 2 games. Terry Walker, a senior safety, leads UTEP with 3 fumble recoveries and 4 interceptions.

Hegarty, a senior from Tustin who briefly attended Air Force and then Saddleback College before transferring to UTEP, is completing 53.9% of his passes (153 of 284 for 2,082 yards) while throwing 16 touchdowns and 8 interceptions.

Harvey started strong, rushing for 260 yards and scoring 8 touchdowns in the Miners’ first 3 games, but he has not been the same since being injured in a 27-24 victory at Tulsa. He has missed 2 of the 5 games since and his role has been filled by a trio of backs--fullback Eddie Dixon and tailbacks Scooter Menifee and Willie Fuller.

Still, the Miners are averaging 33.8 points per game, nearly 14 more than the Aztecs are scoring (19.9) and just slightly less than what they are allowing (35.1). But despite such numerical disparity, the Aztecs are hoping their victory over BYU is part of their own resurgence.

“We just want to build on that and finish strong,” SDSU Coach Denny Stolz said. “We’d like to win the rest of them and have some momentum going into next season.”

Aztec Notes

Monty Gilbreath needs one catch against Texas El Paso to set a San Diego State record for consecutive games with at least one reception. Gilbreath tied Chris Hardy’s 2-year-old record of 23 games last week against Brigham Young. . . . The Aztecs have won 3 in a row at Texas El Paso since a 31-24 loss in 1978. . . . SDSU, which ends its season next Saturday at New Mexico, has lost 5 in a row and 9 of its past 10 games on the road over 2 seasons. The Aztecs’ only road victory in that span was last season in Hawaii, 29-21. It is their longest road losing streak since dropping 6 in a row over the 1984-85 seasons.