If the point of an opening game is to win and figure out areas that need to improve, UTEP can consider its overtime opener, a 31-24 victory against Stony Brook, a rousing success.

By most other measures, not so much.

Still, a search for positives would show a team that fought back from two touchdowns down behind a big second half from transfer quarterback Nick Lamaison and a defense that at least did wear down a team with 22 fewer scholarships not used to the El Paso heat.

"I'm happy now," coach Mike Price said. "Dude, it beats the alternative. É I told you we'd be exciting."

The first question posed to receiver Donavon Kemp, whose overtime touchdown catch was half of the two-play extra period, was if he would have been happy with a seven-point win before the game kicked off.

"No," he said. "Playing a I-AA team, I figured this was a game we'd just dominate. It didn't work out that way. What the team needed to do, we needed to come together. We kept pushing."

Now comes the work of fixing the flaws and there were plenty.

UTEP rushed for 36 yards on 23 carries, and if Nick Lamaison hadn't taken a late sack, he would have been the team's leading rusher on scrambles when he was forced to flee the pocket.

"Our offensive game plan wasn't brilliant," Price said. "I was thinking we could run the ball against them and we couldn't. We messed around and missed a couple of touchdowns.

"We were not knocking them off the ball. Schematically, it looked good. It looked good when we were driving dummies five yards back.


Those guys weren't dummies."

UTEP had 18 snaps in a two-first down first half compared to 40 Stony Brook plays, making it harder for the Miners to wear down the Seawolves.

"The first half we didn't help our defense at all," Kemp said. "We weren't on the field."

The defense had problems of its own early. UTEP stacked up to stop the run but didn't have much success, and the bootleg had them baffled.

"We looked at the film and they looked good, but they were running different stuff, shifting people, moving from side to side," said defensive back Travaun Nixon, who won the game with his first-ever walk-off interception.

UTEP adjusted at halftime and was much better, though it did give up a long touchdown drive right after its offense had tied the game.

While the final score was a bit embarrassing for UTEP, it did leave as many as 21 points on the field. A first-and-goal from the 1-yard line turned into a fourth-down interception, what looked like a touchdown on the next drive ended up being a fumble into the end zone and Stony Brook scored on defense.

So there were some bright spots. tight end Eric Tomlinson had a pair of touchdown catches, Lamaison rallied from a dismal first half to throw for 365 yards under heavy pressure, and both of his interceptions were forgivable. And the defense held Stony Brook to one first down in a fourth quarter where a single score likely would have been a game-winner for the Seawolves.

Most of all, the Miners did find a way to win.

"It was a little more exciting than I would have liked it," Lamaison said. "We came out, struggled and made it difficult. But we held together and pulled it out in the second half."

"I'm so proud of the team leadership," Price said. "We can learn through this adversity. There's lots to learn from this."

On Lamaison, who improved to 28-1 as a college starter, Price said, "He did a great job of coming back from a poor performance in the first half. He's a competitor, he's a winner. We're winners.

"We're champions."

UTEP has a long way to go to make that last line come true, but at least they go about it with a 1-0 record instead of 0-1.
