UTEP football recap: Memphis ends Miners' season with 38-19 upset

CUSA-fans.com has a new staff of team correspondents this fall to help bring you, the fan, more detailed Conference USA sports coverage. Today, our new UTEP Correspondent Robert Robles brings you a recap of the CUSA football game between UTEP and Memphis.

The bane of UTEP’s season was the run, on both sides of the ball. Ask Ahmad Bradshaw, UTEP's defense could not stop the run and as a result, Bradshaw rushed for 261 yards and 5 touchdowns. UTEP could not run the ball either, as a result, only 10 rushing yards in a game against UAB, UTEP won the game nevertheless but it was an indicator.

For three straight years, UTEP has lost the last two games in their season. People theorize that it’s the mentality of the team; others argue that it is injuries at key positions, but nevertheless the explanation has yet to be found.

Saturday night’s loss to the Memphis Tigers and Tommy West, 38-19, was no exception. Statistically, UTEP should have dominated the game with both yards and points, but this was never to be, UTEP only led once in the ballgame when it was 3-0 in the first quarter.

It was a bitter and frustrating night for UTEP sports fans, due to the loss in men’s basketball, 94-77, to Bobby Knight's Texas Tech earlier in the afternoon.

Although Palmer was injured early in the fourth quarter on a 2-point conversion attempt that failed, he managed to pass the 300 yards passing mark for four consecutive games, finishing with 307 yards, completing 22-of-37 attempts, 1 touchdown and 0 interceptions. On Saturday, Palmer reached 11,000 career passing yards while at UTEP, an achievement accomplished by few.

The Miners, for the most part, had cut down on turnovers during the 2006 season; the game against the Tigers was a major turnover loss for the Miners, since they turned the ball over 4 times to the Tigers 0. Time of possession was won by the Tigers as well, having the ball 34 minutes and 12 seconds to the 25 minutes and 48 seconds for the Miners.

The Miners finished the night with 403 total yards, of which only 5 were rushing. The Tigers finished with 376 total yards, 218 passing and 158 rushing.

Memphis quarterback Martin Hankins finished the night going 16-of-26 attempts, and no touchdowns or interceptions. The running back, Joseph Doss, finished the night with 82 yards on 28 carries and 3 touchdowns. The leading receiver for Memphis was Duke Calhoun with 5 receptions, 129 yards, and no touchdowns.

UTEP and Memphis last season were both bowl bound at this point in the year, this is not the case this year with both underachieving this season with UTEP going 5-7 on the year and Memphis going 2-10.