#69 UTEP

El Paso, TX

Sun Bowl

September 23, 2023

UNLV 45 - UTEP 28 (ESPN Recap)

Nice!

Fulfilled a dream and competed on the field during an official break in play. I dressed as a top bun, grabbed five ingredients in 30 seconds (one at a time) and completed the Whataburger challenge to win a gift card, water bottle, sauce dip holder for car, and sun glasses. It was amazing!

It is hard to describe the thrill of having a dozen professionals and family members making fun of the bun costume, having 19 year-old band members pep talking me as I took the field “you got this!”, finding out the prize was $25, and then having a friend yelling “put some cheese on it!” “throw some meat on it!” “go buns!” during the event. Jumping perpendicularly onto Chase at the end. It was perfect.

El Paso is a sneaky beautiful town right on the border with Juarez, Mexico. Stunning mountain views and southwestern vibes. A big takeaway from our family was how nice everyone was in the city. Had a very small-town feel for a city with a population of 700,000. Every Lyft and Uber driver would point to the left and say “that’s Mexico” or “there’s Mexico” or “Mexico is right there.” On average, I was 0.2 miles from Mexico throughout the 2.5 days I spent there. The air is pleasantly dry and the mornings and evenings are perfect temperatures in the Fall (it’s a bit hot in the middle-afternoon hours).

Highly recommend staying at the Stanton House hotel downtown if you make the trip. Really solid hotel with apparently the best coffee my wife has ever had. On Friday, we got our Flo on and ate a spectacular seafood lunch at Los Arcos in Juarez, Mexico, before walking back across the border. We took a Tiger with us to

Mexico for safety reasons.

Saturday, my oldest son and I went swimming at the Armijo Public Pool which was a big hit, followed by pregaming at Sebastian and Ronnie’s, tailgating in some shade, and averting an inadvertent military enlistment while heading into the Sun Bowl.

We had some good access thanks to friends in high places and Charley. Spent warmups and kickoff on the field, as well as most of Q2. I completed the Whataburger challenge with Chase right as halftime began, and watched the remainder of the game from the Hunt Lounge box seats.

For the devout blog followers, you may remember the ASU game a couple of years ago that led to some outrageous conversations with security and then shenanigans to get my wife's purse into the stadium. At UTEP, we had a full-size kid's backpack with us and tried to learn from the ASU situation by stuffing it into a large "clear bag". It worked! You can bring ANYTHING non-metal into a stadium as long as it fits into a clear bag. Has to be one of the dumbest security rules for stadiums in existence.

UTEP football has a very similar fan base to that of SJSU, Nevada, FIU, and Texas St: mostly latino, decked out in school pride, really into the game (not just there for a night of entertainment). Stated attendance was 28,000 but it felt a bit closer to 12,000. UTEP also does not have a complete football team. Their tiny RB #5 Burgess was tough to tackle and the QB made a few good throws on 3rd and forever, but their defense, OLine, and DLine really struggled. UNLV ran for 6.4 YPC and had at least 7 runs of 20+ yards in the game.

Special game for the obvious on field antics. But also, first ever CFB game for oldest son.

UNLV -2 was never in doubt and the UNLV 2H +1 came down to the final play which was sick but worked out. Took a really fast Porsche home going 100 MPH most of the way which ended up being huge for the extra sleep before the early flight.