With recent updates to the Rivals recruiting rankings for the 2025 cycle, Scotty Walden and UTEP now hold the No. 1 recruiting class in Conference USA.

Despite an 0-4 start to Walden's inaugural season at the helm, the Miners' staff is laying the groundwork for long-term success in El Paso, and that effort began with a strong finishing kick in the 2024 recruiting cycle and some remarkable work in the transfer portal this past offseason. UTEP got its first 2025 commit at the spring game in April, as two-star LB Royce Wilson bought into the staff's vision and gave a verbal pledge. Come June, the Miners added four commits in four days, landing three-star DB Grant Stewart, two-star LB Copelin Windfont, two-star QB Chad Warner and two-star OL Maddox Huber.

The class exploded in late July, as UTEP picked up ten commits at the Sun City Showcase. All of those commits went public within two weeks. They added one more verbal a few weeks later, as two-star OL Diego De La Cruz locked it in with the Miners after some initial reticence to commit at the Showcase.

For the moment, UTEP's class is holding strong at sixteen total commits, three of which are three-star players. The highest-rated pledge of the cycle for the Miners is three-star LB Kane Bowen, who was initially a Tulsa lean but visited UTEP for the first time in July and promptly decided to commit.

UTEP will look to expand their class even further throughout the fall, as they've set official visits with a number of highly coveted targets that remain uncommitted. They're also working to flip several talented local prospects that are currently pledged elsewhere. But in the meantime, they maintain the advantage over Florida International and Louisiana Tech for the No. 1 class in C-USA, and provided that the desired on-field results begin to materialize for Walden and his staff, the trajectory of UTEP football appears to be an overwhelmingly positive one.

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