DALLAS – Thursday marked the start of fall camp for a pair of Conference USA programs – Louisiana Tech and UTEP. These are two of the five CUSA teams opening the 2023 college football season on Saturday, Aug. 26, in Week 0, with the other three – FIU, Jacksonville State and New Mexico State already underway.
Conference USA’s five teams kick off play in three of the seven FBS games in Week 0, all nationally televised, highlighted by a pair of league contests. Jacksonville State is slated to host UTEP at 4:30 p.m. CT on CBS Sports Network, New Mexico State will host UMass at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN and FIU travels to Louisiana Tech for an 8 p.m. CT kickoff, also on CBS Sports Network.
Louisiana Tech began fall camp with a morning practice in the warmth of Ruston, Louisiana, on Thursday, The Bulldogs are looking to rebound in 2023, the program’s second season under head coach Sonny Cumbie and aim to return to the postseason for the first time since 2020.
“For our first practice of fall camp, I thought our guys really picked up where we left off in the spring,” Cumbie said following Thursday’s practice. “[We’ve got] a lot of new faces on defense and on offense, when you think about all the high school and transfer players. So there was a bit of learning of where the drills go and where everybody moves from period to period, but I think Coach [Dave] Sholz and his staff did a great job from a conditioning standpoint. Our players were on point, were very prepared for really all the volume of running we’re doing, the change of speed, change of direction and all those things. They were very prepared, so from that standpoint I was pleased and I think we got to the end of practice and we just have to have a greater level on concentration when we get to the end.”The UTEP Miners opened things up on Thursday afternoon in El Paso and are focused on continuing to build under head coach Dana Dimel. The Miners went 7-6 in 2021 with a New Mexico Bowl appearance and finished last season at 5-7, just shy of back-to-back bowl games. UTEP is 11-3 in its last 14 games at home in the Sun Bowl (dating back to 2020), and will look to continue that home success in 2023.
“We’re going to work extremely hard to make sure we have a really special season,” Dimel said following the first fall practice. “Like I said, I feel like this is our most talented team – I think by far our most talented team. Now it’s just putting all the pieces of the puzzle together to get W’s, and I’m not gonna say on the weekends this fall, because it’s in the midweek and weekends as well. It’s about how much can a team improve before that first game, and not peak too early. I think as you open conference play in Week 0 like some of us are, you want to reach a high enough point as quickly as possible, so the next 30 days are very, very important.”Stay tuned to ConferenceUSA.com as the remaining four programs – Liberty, Middle Tennessee, Sam Houston and WKU kick off fall camp on Wednesday, Aug. 2.
