UTEP kicked off the 2017 coaching carousel when Sean Kugler stepped down Sunday afternoon after an 0-5 start to the season. The Miners are, in a word, bad. That’s how you get a coach out the door when the calendar has barely flipped to October.
7 names to know for the uniquely difficult UTEP job, the 2017 season’s first new coaching search
This job’s a toughy, but it’ll be an opportunity for somebody.
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Kugler went 2-10 in 2013, his first season, before lodging a nice improvement in Year 2, when UTEP won seven games and played in the New Mexico Bowl. The Miners cratered after that, and Kugler’s record sat at 18-31 over his first four years.
The Miners hired Mike Price to be their interim head coach. He was UTEP’s head coach from 2004 through 2012, after coaching at Washington State and getting the Cougars to a couple of Rose Bowls. He was briefly the coach at Alabama too, during one offseason.
Some more names to look out for, after I spoke to a couple of people with relevant knowledge:
- K.C. Keeler, Sam Houston State head coach. Keeler is 34-10 with the Bearkats, with two trips to the FCS semifinals in his three years. Before the Sam Houston job, he coached at Delaware and tutored Baltimore Ravens QB Joe Flacco.
- Graham Harrell, North Texas offensive coordinator. Harrell’s an Ennis, Texas native and a known quantity in West Texas after playing QB at Texas Tech. The air raid offense can do more with less.
- Phil Longo, Ole Miss offensive coordinator. His penchant for offensive ingenuity didn’t vanish because the Rebels had to play Alabama. Longo worked for Keeler at Sam Houston State, where the offense was No. 1 in total yards two years in a row, including an otherworldly 7,975 yards in 2015, third all-time in FCS history.
- Ty Detmer, BYU offensive coordinator. The former Heisman winner and Texas high school coach would be a splash hire. He has recruiting ties to the Arizona/Utah corridor.
- Colby Carthel, Texas A&M University-Commerce head coach. The Lions are Division II, but Carthel has them humming at 5-0 with a high-octane offense. The program’s made two playoff appearances in a row under Carthel, and this year could be a breakthrough.
- Guy Holliday, Utah wide receivers coach. Holliday recently leapt from BYU to Utah, but has ties to the Miners. He coached there for five years in the late 2000s. He also has effectively recruited the Southwest.
- Ed Lamb, BYU assistant head coach. He was recently head coach at Southern Utah, where the Thunderbirds yo-yo’d from the FCS playoffs to sub-.500. He is in his second season with the Cougars.
- A combination of productive offense, Texas ties, and FBS experience seems to be what UTEP fans are looking for.
To understand UTEP is to first understand geography.
UTEP is a stone’s throw from the Mexican border, and you can literally see into the country from the Sun Bowl. UTEP is roughly as far away from Los Angeles as it is from Houston. Its location hurts the perception of the program and is a reason why the school doesn’t sign a lot of players from the metro Texas areas. It hasn’t won a bowl game since 1967 and has had only one winning season since 2005.
The program has to fight in the bottom tier of Texas FBS programs, and that task isn’t getting any easier. UTSA, North Texas, Rice, and Texas State are the competition. UTSA already looks to be separating itself on the recruiting trail.
Further complicating things, the program will be bringing in a new athletic director, with longtime AD Bob Stull stepping aside as soon as a successor is named.
It’s a hard job, and it isn’t particularly lucrative monetarily. But it is an FBS coaching gig, and it’s open for the right guy.
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