Scotty Walden has carried a Pickaxe on his shoulder all spring practice with the number 15 on it. His inaugural season at UTEP was proof of how slim the margin of error from 3-9 to a bowl game is. The Miners lost three games by 14 combined points, and were either leading or tied in the fourth quarter in all of them.

They need to find 15 points this offseason, and the team has been looking for them by doing mat drills in a dingy back room of UTEP’s Memorial Basketball Gym. This is where the 1966 “Glory Road” basketball national champions at Texas Western were built, and it’s where Walden’s 2025 team will be, too.

We stop at all 13 FBS programs in Texas each spring as we compile the Dave Campbell’s Texas Football summer magazine. Our stop in El Paso included sit downs with Walden, Mark Cala and Bobby Daly. Here are our notes from that visit. 

Previous stops: Baylor | North Texas | SMU | TCU | Texas Tech | Texas State

Overview

• UTEP has signed 42 Texas high school football players in Scotty Walden’s first two cycles, the most of any FBS program in the nation. Walden says this team will be built on elite high school prospects rather than how UTEP has operated in the past prioritizing JUCO players and transfers.
• Walden went to UTEP athletic director Jim Senter this offseason and asked for his contract to be restructured so more money could go to the players and revenue sharing. He wants the donors and alumni base to know he is just as serious as they are about building a good football team, which requires more money to the players. Instead of a restructured contract, he and his wife, Callie, are matching up to $70,000 in NIL donations through April 30.

Offense

• Malachi Nelson is the highest-rated recruit to ever join UTEP’s football team, but he’ll have to go through Skyler Locklear to win the starting quarterback job. Walden said Locklear has had his best spring practice in the four years he’s coached him and hadn’t thrown an interception through 13 practices. Locklear also lifts weights with the offensive linemen.
• Speaking of lifting, getting bigger and stronger was priority No.1 for UTEP this offseason. The Miners were pushed around on both lines of scrimmage. Walden said when he took the job, the team’s average squat max was 365, which is less than some TXHSFB programs average. A year later, it’s 470. The average offensive lineman the staff brought in was 6-6, 315 pounds.
• New offensive coordinator Mark Cala has coached Walden’s offensive scheme since 2017 when he started working with Kendal Briles at FAU. Last season, TCU moved wide receiver Savion Williams to wildcat quarterback and running back out of necessity. Cala sees a lot of similarities between Williams and Miner Back Kam Thomas, even if Williams is 6-4 and Thomas is 5-7. Point is, Cala and Walden will be creative getting their best athletes the ball.
• Kenny Odom is the clear-cut WR1 after eight touchdown receptions last season and a second-team All-Conference USA nod. The coaches describe him as the definition of a Miner who treats every day like game day.
• Offensive linemen Ivan Escobar and Azizi Henry have missed spring practice but should play major roles in the fall.

Defense

• New defensive coordinator Bobby Daly didn’t coach the 3-3-5 last year at Montana State, but Walden believes in the coordinator learning new terminology and not 80 players. One tweak Daly did disclose - a bigger emphasis on blitzing with new packages. UTEP ranked first in Conference USA last year in sacks and tackles for loss.
• Walden mentioned before that he wants coordinators who are hungry and have climbed their way up the ladder. Daly fits that bill, leaving his alma mater at Montana State for an FBS coaching job.
• After talking to the coaches, I’m unofficially naming defensive tackle KD Johnson as the Defensive MVP this spring. He gets another year of eligibility thanks to Diego Pavia’s successful suit that JUCO years shouldn’t count toward eligibility. I believe UTEP wants to grab a few more defensive linemen in the Spring Portal window, but so does every other program.
• In a personnel depth and depth chart meeting last week, Walden was writing names on the chalkboard and said to himself, ‘Man, this is different.’ Last season, UTEP went into games with two healthy cornerbacks, having to move safeties to corners and linebackers to safeties. This year, they legitimately have six linebackers who could start.