UTEP’s Dana Dimel looks ahead to showdown with Texas Longhorns

EL PASO, Texas -- ABC-7 spoke with UTEP head football coach Dana Dimel for a look ahead to Saturday's match up against the University of Texas.

The Miners enter the game with a 1-0 record after defeating Stephen F. Austin this past Saturday at the Sun Bowl.

UTEP knows they'll face a much tougher opponent in the Texas Longhorns, a team out of the Big 12 Conference.

"I have a lot of respect for Tom Herman (UT head coach), I know he's a great ball coach, he prepares his team very well," Dimel said. "They have a ton of talent, they finished up their season last year beating Utah in a bowl game. That puts it in perspective the test we have ahead of us."

Saturday's game will be the first game of the season for Texas, so UTEP has a bit of an advantage by having already played and won their first game.

"It's a good thing for us that we have this game," Dimel said. "We really needed to adapt with how fast the game goes, and you can't simulate that in practice, so that's been a positive for us. On the flip side they (UT football team) have a lot of new coaches on their staff, so we're not super familiar with what they're going to be doing."

Another bit of an advantage for UTEP is that Texas is reducing capacity to 25% at their stadium, and the Longhorns' marching band will not be playing in the stands for this game.

The stadium noise will still be loud, but not as much as it normally would be.

"70,000 less people in the stadium that's a big thing for us," Dimel said. "It will be a great environment for our players, the noise shouldn't be as difficult to handle."

Kickoff is set for Saturday at 6 p.m. Mountain time.

The game will be aired on the Longhorn Network.