UTEP Adds Oklahoma To Already Brutal 2012 Football Schedule

A golden opportunity?

Or another blowout for big bucks?

UTEP has added a home opener against national power Oklahoma to its already tough 2012 football slate.

With UTEP coming off another losing season that included its worst average attendance in nearly a decade, school officials are hoping to generate more cash and more interest in the program by playing some of college football’s top teams.

“Right now, we’re undefeated,” UTEP head coach Mike Price quipped.

But come September, Price’s Miners might not be undefeated for long. Adding a home opener against mighty Oklahoma could make a difficult slate downright harsh, with early season games against Ole Miss and Wisconsin too.

“I’m excited about it,” Price said.

Price, coming off his sixth straight losing season, swears he welcomes the opportunity for himself and his team, which returns 13 starters from last year’s 5-7 squad.

“They’re going to put a few more pounds on those weight racks and run a couple extra sprints in the offseason to prepare, obviously, for a great challenge,” he said.

UTEP will literally be facing the heavyweights of college football, all in the same season: A team from the Southeast Conference (Ole Miss), the Big Ten (Wisconsin) and the Big 12 (Oklahoma).

“It’s a tougher schedule, probably, than you’d like to have,” UTEP Athletic Director Bob Stull admitted, pointing out that scheduling was difficult this year. “Things have changed so much because the 1-AA (schools) are going for a lot of money to different schools and so the whole concept is changing.”

Stull said the Miners will pay the Sooner’s travel expenses, amounting to a $200,000 and play two games at Oklahoma in return. But a sellout of the Oklahoma game in El Paso could mean $1 million for UTEP. The school will also receive $900,000 dollars each for the games at Ole Miss and Wisconsin.

“The biggest thing we want to focus on this year is our fans,” Stull said. “We want to get our fans enthusiastic, we want to get fans back in the stands.”

As for the Miners, who must bear the burden, they know if they can somehow win them all, they’d find themselves in a BCS bowl game.

“It’d be a storybook ending,” senior quarterback Nick Lamaison said. “So we’re going to train for it. For me, personally, it’s a ton of incentive, just how hard I’m going to work in the offseason.”

Oklahoma finished 10-3 last season and will likely be ranked in the top five when they come to El Paso on September 1. Wisconsin won 11 games last year and played in the Rose Bowl. But Ole Miss may be an opportunity for an upset, winning just two games last year.

In UTEP’s last two meetings with Oklahoma in 2000 and 2002, the Miners lost by a combined score of 123-14.