The Aggies travelled to El Paso to take on the UTEP Miners and left with a 45-0 loss. The Aggie offense, defense, and special teams all looked just as bad, if not worse than last week. The offense only generated 226 yards and 9 first downs, the defense gave up 445 yards and 22 first downs, and the special teams allowed a 91 yard return for a touchdown to start the 3rd quarter.
The Aggies have been playing the "matador" defense this season. In their four losses the common theme has been the inability to stop the run. The Aggies have given up 1144 rushing yards in those four losses (286 yards/game) while only gaining 276 rushing yards (69 yards/game). In their four losses the Aggies have been outscored 187-30 including 83-3 in the past two games and have been held scoreless in 7 of the past 8 quarters.
For an offense that thrives on ball control and uses the run game to set up the passing game, averaging 69 rushing yards per game is not going to get it done. This disturbing trend has not been limited to their losses either. Even in their win against Troy the Aggies only rushed for 107 yards. If the Aggies want to be successful they must get control the line of scrimmage and run the ball.
The Aggies are back at home on Saturday to take on Louisiana-Lafayette. ULL is coming off a 43-34 win over Florida Intl. The Aggies can still win the Sun Belt conference but now have a 0% margin for error. The Aggies must win all of their remaining games and hope that either Troy or N. Texas beat Arkansas St. (the Aggies do not play Arkansas St. this season).