Analysis: UTEP gets it right with hiring of Scotty Walden
The hiring of Scotty Walden is exactly the jolt UTEP football needed.
On paper, his hire looks like the home run athletic director Jim Senter had to have. It has to work on the field, and a big improvement next season doesn't seem likely with all of UTEP's transfer portal defections, but this feels like a move in the right direction.
From a resumé standpoint, Walden checks all the boxes. He's been a successful head coach one level down at Austin Peay. He's young (34), he has an offensive background and he brings energy. Finding videos of him hopping around with his team are easy to find.
Also key was the quickness of the hire, which came the day the transfer portal opened and eight days after the school parted ways with Dana Dimel.
The list of finalists was good enough to inspire confidence that the process wasn't rushed too much. Those were UNLV offensive coordinator Brennan Marion, Texas Tech offensive coordinator Zach Kittley, Texas Texas associate head coach Kenny Perry and former UTEP offensive coordinator Eric Price, all of whom would have been good hires.
That includes Price, who looks a bit like an outlier on that list, but the offense he created here two decades ago indicates he knew how to get talent to El Paso.
In fact, his leaving for the NFL in 2008 could be circled as the beginning of UTEP offensive struggles that were the reason Sean Kugler and then Dana Dimel didn't make it here.
They both shuttled through offensive coordinators (in reality Dimel was the de facto coordinator most of his tenure) without finding anything that translated to yards and points.
Fixing the offense will be Walden's No. 1 task, and offense is the No. 1 reason Austin Peay became a conference champion.
The Governors were creative under Walden and that's not a word that has been associated with UTEP's offense of the last decade. Imagination seemed anathema in the Kugler age, and while that improved under Dana Dimel, what ended up on the field wasn't always much fun to watch.
Of course, winning games is ultimately going to be bigger than the thrill of watching an offense sling the ball around, but Austin Peay showed both can be done.
The key, as ever, will be recruiting and Walden stocked a roster of winners at Austin Peay. The challenges in El Paso are different, he may have to go heavier on junior colleges than he did at Austin Peay, where Walden had a higher percentage of high school recruits than would seem possible at UTEP in this era.
Everything on his resume suggests he's adaptable. He began his coaching career at Sul Ross State, which is a harder place to recruit to than UTEP.
The UTEP fan base will have to be patient. The offense the Miners are going to put on the field next year will have an entirely new group of starters on the offensive line and likely at running back and receiver as well.
This might not start pretty at Nebraska in 2024, but UTEP has always been good about giving coaches time.
"On paper" doesn't always mirror "on the field" but the resumé matters. Walden has much to do at UTEP but everything about his hire suggests the Miners have started moving in the right direction.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: UTEP gets it right with hiring of Scotty Walden | Bloomquist
