Bryce Underwood put the ball on the ground on Michigan's opening drive, Savion Hiter lost another deep in Michigan territory, and EJ Colson turned both gifts into points. He threw a 45-yard play-action strike to Carver Cheeks on third-and-1 and an 18-yard flip to Lamar Sperling off a fake run. That was UTEP up 14-7 on a ranked team in front of 110,668 people, the largest crowd ever to watch the Miners play. Then Michigan stopped handing the ball over, and UTEP's offense had to go find points on its own. It never did. The Wolverines tied it 14-14, took a 17-14 lead on a field goal as the first half expired after scoring 10 points in the final 1:31, hung 28 on UTEP in the third quarter, and won 52-17. From the moment the Miners led 14-7, Michigan outscored them 45-3.
That is the honest shape of the best half UTEP has played this season. It was a plan that worked beautifully with 40 yards of grass to cover and produced nothing with 80.
What the second half actually showed
Colson finished 7 of 9 for 86 yards and two touchdowns. Six of those completions came in the first half. He completed exactly one pass after halftime, and his only other meaningful throw was a third-and-21 interception late in the third quarter that Jonah Lea'ea returned for a touchdown to make it 45-14. Raymond Moore took over in the fourth quarter. It was Colson's first interception of the season, which matters because interception-free football had been the whole selling point of the reset. He had thrown four touchdowns and no picks against Texas Southern, hitting Kam Thomas for 83 yards on UTEP's first offensive play in that game.
The run game gave him nothing to lean on. UTEP carried 32 times for 57 net yards, with Michigan's four sacks eating a gross figure of 97 down to that. Eleven different Wolverines were credited with part of a tackle for loss. Walden's explanation was specific and worth remembering. Michigan adjusted on UTEP's read plays in the second half, at times putting "two hats on the back side," and Michigan's offensive line "really started to kind of lean on us a little bit." He put the blame on execution more than scheme.
That is the live question for the Lanear Sampson, Joe Pappalardo offense, the co-coordinator pairing Walden built this staff around alongside Kyle Beyer's promotion on defense. Through three games the offense has scored when someone handed it a short field or when the opponent was Texas Southern. It has not yet marched 75 yards against a defense that was trying.
Oregon State, Saturday, 7 p.m. at the Sun Bowl
Oregon State is also 1-2, and the Beavers arrive with the strangest stat line UTEP will see all year. They rank first nationally in passing offense at 386.3 yards a game, 136th in rushing at 75.0, and a defense ranked 111th in the country at 407.7 yards allowed per game. That last number is the point. UTEP ranks 131st in total offense and 129th through the air, and Oregon State is the first opponent all season whose defense is worse than the Miners' offense.
There is an extra wrinkle up front. Oregon State starting center Van Wells has a preliminary injunction hearing against the NCAA that resumes Tuesday. Michael Langi and Jack Wagner are the only other players who have worked at center to fill in for him. UTEP's defense spent the Michigan game tackling downhill, with Xavier Smith posting a career-high 11 stops and Justin Content adding 10; Elijah Fields had two tackles for loss and a sack, though no UTEP defensive third-down data was published from that game, so how much pressure the front actually generated is still an open question. An unsettled center against a team that throws on nearly every down is where you find out.
The Miners are home for Homecoming Weekend, the athletic department's marquee event of the fall, and this is the first football meeting ever between the schools, the opener of a home-and-home that returns to Corvallis in 2030.
What to watch
Not the final score first. Watch UTEP's first possession that starts inside its own 30. Watch whether the Miners can run the ball on early downs when Oregon State knows they want to, because that is what collapsed at Michigan and what Walden says is fixable with cleaner execution. Watch whether Colson gets to throw on second-and-4 instead of third-and-21.
If UTEP drives the length of the field for a touchdown on Saturday night, the season looks different by Monday. If the only points again come off takeaways, then a 1-2 start heading into Mountain West play is telling the same story it has been telling for three weeks.
Full week details are in the interactive guide, and the forecast methodology explains where the numbers come from.