The UTEP football team held their annual spring game at the Sun Bowl Friday night. The spring game is the last organized team practice of the season before the off-season.
“It was very competitive in all aspects,” said Miner head coach Sean Kugler. “We had many agendas going to the spring with all positions and we resolved a lot of those.”
The Miners showcased many of their best on offense and defense. The offense however did not come to play today as the defense stopped them in almost every drill. The defense had four turnovers and forced many fourth down incompletions.
“They have been great all spring, really since midpoint last year,” Kugler said. “The light goes off for them and Coach Stoker does an outstanding job, they got the best part of the offense today.”
A big question going into the spring game involved the quarter back competition. The Miners are having a battle at that position that has everyone fighting for the starting role.
“They all did certain things well,” Kugler said. “The good thing is that all the quarter backs have had a good spring, which means this competition will go to the fall.”
Despite starting his night off with a fumble, quarterback Garrett Simpson had a good showing. He went 8-14 and got the best of the defense on more than one occasion.
“You always have to keep grining and do your best,” Simpson said. “If you get behind you have to work to get back.”
The second quarterback, Mack Leftwich, also had a good game winning a couple of drills against the defense.
“Overall it went pretty well,” Leftwich said. “There’s a couple things I need to clean up but over all it went pretty well.”
UTEP’s third quarterback, Ryan Metz, had one of the highlights of the night when he ran more than 60 yards to score a touchdown. His day was cut due to injury though, when he could not continue because of a hamstring.
“Our defense is a stout defense. The more practice that they get in camp they will be one of the best defenses in the conference, Metz said. “It adds a lot of pressure to us to see that defense every day sometimes you have your good days and sometimes you have a bad day against them.”
The role of backing up running back Aaron Jones is also up for grabs. With all the running backs performing nicely, David Hamm was the one to stand out.
Overall the defense handled the offense in almost every facet of the game.
The defense even won most of the “pods” that took place. The pods are two on two battles between running backs and linemen. The defense came out victorious in all but a handful of pods.
UTEP football will now be off until summer camp. The spring game was the last chance before the off season for any players to make an argument on why they should play.
Juan Carlos Navarrete can be reached at [email protected]
