Statistically, everything went the Miners way on Saturday night facing Western Kentucky at home. The Miner Defense held one of the best quarterbacks Austin Reed to 102 passing yards and forced an interception. The Offense outgained the Hilltoppers 368 to 280, but the Miners had two possessions inside the Western Kentucky 3 yardline in the back half of the 2nd quarter and could only muster a total of 3 points.
Western Kentucky received the opening kickoff and punted after 4 plays. The Miner Defense had one of the best defensive halves of the season forcing the Hilltopers to Punt on their first 4 possessions, a Miner interception by Oscar Moore, and Hilltoppers taking a knee to go into halftime. Despite the Miner’s solid defensive effort the offense was only able to muster 3 points on a 22 Yard Buzz Flabiano field goal after Western Kentucky’s first goal line stand with 6:49 to play in the first half.
On the next Hilltopper possession Oscar Moore would pick Austin Reed and the Miners would drive the ball down to the Western Kentucky 3-Yardline, but the Miners with two opportunities to gain a yard to continue the drive and take a 10-0 lead into halftime poised to receive the 2nd half kickoff where stopped on two consecutive plays on 3rd and 1 and 4th and one as time expired losing the opportunity to create space on the scoreboard.
UTEP’s dismal offensive night would continue after receiving the opening half kick off and going 3 and out, punting the ball to Western Kentucky who would score on their 2nd play of the half when Running Back Elijah Young would run 64 yards up the gut to give the Hilltoppers a 7-3 lead. After Cade McConnel threw his only pick of the game the Hilltoppers would go on a 16 play 54 yard drive that ate 8:46 of the 3rd quarter clock and give Western Kentucky a 14-3 lead going into the 4th quarter.
As the fourth quarter began with Quarterback Cade McConnel finding a spark with a 64 yard touchdown pass to Kelly Akharaiyi to cut the lead to 14-10 with 14:15 to play in the game and giving the Miner faithful hope that this would be their second come-from-behind victory in the last two weeks, but Western Kentucky would engineer a 8 play 75 yard drive complete with a second touchdown for Elijah Young extend their lead to 21-10 with 9:34 to play.
The Miner offense was unable to get anything going until the last minute of the game driving into Hilltopper Territory where with no time outs their drive would stall and force coach Dimmel to take 32 yard field goal to cut the score to a 1 possession game at 21-13 and give the Miners the tall task of recovering an onside kick scoring a touchdown and getting a two-point conversion with under a minute and no timeouts.
Western Kentucky would squash that glimmer of hope recovering the onside kick to run out the clock and keep pace with New Mexico State for the right to play Liberty in the Conference USA title game.
For the Miners the disappointing 2023 campaign now moves forward with a road game at Middle Tennessee State after a bi-week and the home finale against 9-0 Liberty who has already punched their ticket to the Conference USA Championship Game. The Miners now move forward playing only for pride and the chance to put a wrinkle in Liberty’s undefeated season.
Story by Chris Gomez