Analysis: UTEP football begins waiting game as season ticks down

At this point, the most relevant development around UTEP football is the waiting.

UTEP athletic director Jim Senter isn't going to fire Dana Dimel and announce "a national coaching search" before the season-ender against undefeated Liberty. If Miner fans are looking for something positive to take out of this season, it's that the Miners are going down with dignity.

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Dimel has been classy throughout this disappointing season, which took a typical beat in the 34-30 loss to Middle Tennessee Saturday. A UTEP team decimated by injuries fought hard, played well at times but couldn't create one more winning moment than its opponent.

So UTEP is 3-8 with an unbeaten opponent likely to send them to 3-9, yet there is pride around this group. They play hard, they fight for each other, they have been extraordinarily loyal to Dimel and his staff and he's been loyal to them.

They've built something. The problem is that something isn't enough to meet expectations, which begin with 6-6 and a bowl berth. The 2021 season purchased a few years, now that time is up.

Could this season have reached 6-6 and another New Mexico Bowl berth without injuries? Perhaps, though they were healthy in the season-opening, last-minute loss to what turned out to be a good Jacksonville State team and that turned out to be a crushing blow.

That game, that third-down bomb to Kelly Akharaiyi that for a split second looked like a winner, is the what-if.

What happened is that UTEP never found that sense of the moment, that ability to make a big play with everything on the line. They did it against a Sam Houston team that shares that inability to get over the top, but mostly UTEP left win after win on the table.

That happened again at Middle Tennessee. UTEP kept fighting their way back into the game, they kept pushing the boulder up the hill in a stoically Sisyphean task, only to see it roll back down just as it got near the top.

They were down to fourth-team tailback Ezekiel Jolly by the end of the game, as their two offensive MVPs, Deion Hankins and Torrance Burgess, were knocked out.

On the bright side, the former fourth-team quarterback, Cade McConnell, continues to look like he could be an answer at that position for the next two years, if he chooses to stay in what figures to be a turbulent offseason.

For the most part though, UTEP will probably be starting over a week from now, hoping a reboot pays off like it has at New Mexico State.

About the only thing Middle Tennessee offered was the chance to head into this final week with a bounce, though UTEP will play hard against Liberty next week no matter what.

They'll play for Dimel, they'll play for each other, they'll play for a program they are proud of and the odds don't give them much of a chance of that translating to a win.

There is dignity in that, which will be a coda for this season and this era.

Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: UTEP football begins waiting game as season ticks down | Bloomquist