The first game of the Scotty Walden era didn't go as planned, as UTEP went scoreless over the final three quarters of action in a 40-7 road loss to Nebraska. The Miners showed some promise in the early stages of the contest, battling the host Huskers to a 7-7 tie at the conclusion of the first quarter, but ultimately could neither stave off nor answer a scoring avalanche from the Blackshirts. Led by freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola, Nebraska buried the Orange and Blue with 23 second-quarter points, and coasted the rest of the way to a comfortable victory.

After addressing his team in the locker room, Walden met briefly with the media in a postgame press conference. Here's all that the Miners' first-year head coach had to say after his team's season-opening defeat.

"Obviously, Nebraska's a great football team, but disappointed in the outcome for sure. Certainly felt like through preparation and through what I've seen in fall camp and things of that nature, definitely thought we'd play better. Definitely thought we'd play better. I thought offensively, we can't do that to our defense. They obviously had double the time of possession, which normally is a stat I don't care about. But if you're not scoring points, it matters a lot, right? And so I think they had close to 80 plays to our 40 plays, or 38 plays, or whatever it was. And that's maybe as bad as I've ever seen. But I just got done talking to the team, and as a head football coach, you gotta sit back and you gotta look at it all. And I saw a lot of really good things today that lead me to believe things that we can build on. That goal-line stop, holding them to a field goal there late, I thought [it] was crucial. I thought we started playing better against the run in the second half, but offensively, we've gotta execute at a higher level to help our defense out.

"Certainly thought just off the cuff, I'll look at the tape, but certainly thought guys played hard. I wasn't coming off the field feeling like our guys didn't expect to win. I told our team just now, I think everybody in that room expected to win. But when you play a great team like Nebraska, [or] you play great teams that are going to be in Conference USA, you've gotta execute. And we did not execute. But I think you saw glimpses of some of the playmakers that we have. I've gotta do a better job of getting them the ball. I've gotta do a better job of managing our defense better. And I've gotta have a better plan for our offense in terms of simplicity, to be able to execute at a higher level. Certainly felt like, with playing a team the caliber of Nebraska, we couldn't just go out there in 10 and 11 personnel and run base plays. Felt like we were gonna have to be unique with our approach, and that leads to your guys having to think a little more. And that's okay, but when you have too much of it, then that hurts you. And I think that's what I did today, and I didn't manage it well as a head football coach.

"But I'm very proud of the way we traveled. I'm proud of the young men that expected to win on this trip. And I do think there's a lot of things that we can build off of, but we gotta get to the tape and see it. I want to give a shoutout to Miner Nation. I want to thank our fans. I want to thank our donor base and those people that came along [on] the trip for this first game. It really meant a lot to us. And we're going to be able to build off this and go forward, but congrats to Nebraska and Coach Rhule on a great game well played. They deserved to win today."

"Yeah, I think we gotta be better on third downs, decision making on third downs. You know, I felt like when we were in rhythm, I felt pretty good about it. I felt good about the way that it's getting distributed. But I think Skyler and Cade both came in and did some really good things. Even Shay [Smith] came in there late and did a few really good things. Wanted to get him some reps, just with the way the game was. Felt like it was good to get him in the game and get his feet wet a little bit as a freshman. But I thought Skyler extended the play in the second half. They gave us a chance, and I thought Cade was whipping that ball around. Obviously, we want the interception back there; we kind of had a misread by a receiver as well on that. We just gotta be on the same page with all the options we give our receivers, and the quarterbacks gotta be on the same page. But I love the fight of all of them. I thought both quarterbacks fought; I thought they fought their tail off. I thought they had good command. In an environment like this, it's hard to have great command. But I think they had good command. We'll shake back next week and be better."

"He's got a lower body injury. We're gonna get that evaluated. Certainly, he was in a lot of pain on the field. Our doctors are looking at him right now. It's a lower body injury, and we'll get an update for you guys when we get it cleared, but we want to get some clarity on it first. But he wasn't able to return to the game, and we'll see what the extent of that injury is."

"Too much. Yeah. I mean, again, I think there's some things still that we could be better at. Early in the game, we got them in a second-and-30; they had penalties and we had them backed up. We can't let them convert that. That's not winning football. And I think that's on me, because I didn't have the right personnel on the field. We had a package in that we wanted to put pressure on 15, and we didn't have the right guys on the field. So that starts with me, making sure that we have the right players in the right position. This game is gonna be a huge evaluation for us. When you have 60 new players... I think we traveled 16 true freshmen on the trip, and a lot of those guys played on special teams and Wefense, mixed in there. We gotta make sure we're right as coaches. I gotta make sure that our staff has got the right people on the field so we can execute.

"But certainly, I thought our defensive front played stout. I know the yards aren't gonna tell that, but when you're on the field that long, it's hard to evaluate defensively how good we were. But I think if we limit those snaps, there were some plays we made; we tackled physical. I would rather us play physical in the secondary and risk PI calls rather than play soft and give up touchdowns. We gave up the one deep ball on the go route. The go route before half is the one that hurts; I don't like that one when we have two guys in coverage there. But overall, defensively, it's hard to evaluate because we had them on the field so long. Offense can't go three-and-out; offense can't not convert third downs. We gotta be better on third down defensively as well. But we had the one take-back, but it's hard to evaluate with the amount of talent on the field."

"Man, it all starts with a great P-and-10 play. There was nothing about those plays that was gameplanning. That's our base offense. It started out with that P-and-10 play with the slant to Goodman, and he caught it for about 12. And we go back to the zone play with Jevon, got a big gain, and then we're able to get in rhythm. And then we caught 'em in man coverage, and Skyler threw a heck of a ball and Kam Thomas made a heck of a play on that ball, man. And when this offense is in a rhythm, and we have our pace and we get the first first down, then we're really hard to stop. And I think that was the best showcase of our tempo and our rhythm, and all eleven executing synonymously. I can't wait to watch the film, because I want to see how many missed assignments we had. And again, that goes back to me. I have to narrow in this gameplay better for our guys so we can execute. But I don't know that besides that drive, Parker, if we had a drive where we didn't have at least one missed assignment. And that's inexcusable, and that starts with me. It's not the players; it's me, because they gotta know what they're doing first in order to give them a chance to succeed. And so we're gonna get back on that. We're a young offense. And when I say young, you may have seniors or juniors, but inexperienced playing-wise is more so what I'm talking about. And we have to give them a chance by being great with the gameplan."

"I'll be honest with you, it was [ineffective], but I don't think I gave it enough [of a] chance. And that's on me. When we couldn't get those drives established, it was really hard to stay in a rhythm running the ball. The game plan was to come in and get 0 and 9 running. 0 and 9 are some of the most prominent D-linemen in this league and in the country. And if we just try to line up and run straight at 'em, that's not gonna be advantageous for us. So we wanted to get those guys moving and running and then go to the run game, but the problem is, we couldn't establish the tempo and the rhythm. I thought the run game in the second half, you saw some glimpses where we started popping some runs with Jevon. And I should have fed him more, should have got him going. They did a great job with their defensive ends; the way they played their ends made it difficult in some of the things that we were trying to do. And so, again, we gotta have a better plan for that, and we will going forward."

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