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Letter to the editor

Revived Price spices up lackluster UTEP

By HUBERT MIZELL
Published November 7, 2004

Mike Price took mud, blood and disgrace, popped it into one of the NCAA's coldest, lowest-voltage football ovens at UTEP and - as TV chef Emeril Lagasse might shout, "Bam!" - a reborn 57-year-old coach microwaved a turnaround so quick and extraordinary he should be a unanimous choice as coach of the year.

That's Bam as in 'Bama.

When the world last heard of Price, who performed 14 seasons of wonders at formerly futile Washington State, a drunken Pensacola night involving a hooker and the new Alabama coach's credit card had cost him the job of a lifetime before he could work a single Crimson Tide game.

Price fell from grace without a parachute. Bam! 'Bama moved on, hiring Mike Shula. Schools gave Price a humiliating, frigid shoulder. Arizona was coach shopping but university president Peter Likins declared Price "will never be in the picture.'' Bam!

It didn't matter that Mike had developed fabulous quarterbacks at Washington State, including Drew Bledsoe, Ryan Leaf and Jason Gesser. He'd taken erstwhile losers from Pullman to astonishing heights, including Rose Bowls.

That's what sold Alabama.

Price said he was sorry about Pensacola. He swore there'd been no sex with the prostitute. But the stigma was stifling. Idaho fired Tom Cable after an 11-35 mess over four seasons, but even the Vandals turned up their lowly snoots at Mike, who'd worked a half-hour west of Moscow at Washington State. Bam!

All that was left was UTEP, the University of Texas at El Paso. Bottom of the coaching barrel. Home of Miners and misery. UTEP was worse than Vanderbilt. Less capable than VMI. Six wins in three seasons. Football hellhole. Easy meat for Army. Price knew it was a coaching graveyard, but he had no place else to dig.

Something we should've never forgotten, no matter the Leno and Letterman jokes about Price, and his mortifying Tuscaloosa bouncing, or the Tucson or Moscow demeanings ... this dude can coach. He can mold. He can identify talent. He can motivate.

Working with paltry ingredients, with a sad UTEP history and expectations disgustingly low, Price as of today has a 6-2 record, and his Miners are ranked 25th nationally. This is like Danny DeVito dunking over Yao Ming.

After losing 41-9 to Arizona State in UTEP's opener, causing widespread wincing with critics who yawned, "What else did anyone expect?" the Miners have fallen only to undefeated Boise State and are on a five-game win streak.

Next up is Rice, followed by SMU and Tulsa. Price could go 9-2 with a program known for 2-9s. Let's hear it for Bounceback Mike. Back from the coaching gutter, heading again up the mountain. Even from you 'Bama people. Even from a sneering U-Arizona prez.

Bam!

DON'T MESS WITH GEORGIA-FLORIDA: There's threatening festering again among Bulldogs. It happens near the end of every contract with Jacksonville.

They suggest maybe it's time to play Georgia-Florida football elsewhere, despite a marvelous 72-game history in an expanding venue long known as the Gator Bowl but now identified as Alltel Stadium.

Vince Dooley did some whining in his celebrated Athens coaching time, saying it's not right to always be playing the Gators on Florida grass. Even if V.D. lost just seven times in 25 dances with UF. Usually, the muttering has been for leverage with Jacksonville interests, angling for ballpark improvements or nicer hotels or whatever. Now it's strictly for geography. Mark Richt is now Georgia's coach. He put a 31-24 bite on the Gators Oct. 30 in Jacksonville. Even if UGA is 2-13 since 1990 against UF. Even so, the contemporary top Dawg says, "It would be more fair to play every other season in our state." Bull! Leave it alone. Florida-Georgia has but one peer: Oklahoma-Texas comes off every season in supposed Dallas neutrality.

If the Gators and Bulldogs went more home and home, it would become just another big series, like Michigan-Ohio State, USC-Notre Dame and North Carolina-N.C. State. Not a terrible thing, but there is special spice in Jacksonville that deserves to be savored forever.

"I'm a lifetime Bulldogs fan and a UGA grad," said Bronson Putnam of Valdosta, Ga. "It's a much easier trip for me to Jacksonville than to Athens. For tens of thousands of south Georgians, this is our game. If it becomes an alternating deal with Atlanta, I'm unhappy."

It is Jacksonville's game.

[Last modified November 6, 2004, 23:27:31]