Ag Football Preview: UTEP

Seeing UTEP on our schedule doesn't even excite me as much as Rice or SMU but this year is a little different.

This past February backup QB, Jameill Showers, decided to transfer out of A&M so he could get some playing time during his senior season.  He already had his degree from A&M completed, so he could transfer to another university for grad school and not have to sit out a season.

What makes this more interesting is that Coach Sumlin allowed him to transfer to UTEP, a school that was on our schedule for this season.  That gave Showers the opportunity to dress out in the visitor's locker room at Kyle Field.

I'd be curious to know how many players have actually played against the school they graduated from?

As soon as I realized the opportunity, I was excited for Showers.  By all accounts, he is a good kid and he loves A&M.  He was in town, on the sidelines, for the Auburn game two weekends ago (UTEP was off that weekend) and was able to dunk his Aggie ring.

Unfortunately, we're not going to get the opportunity to see it play out that way.  Showers suffered a separated shoulder in last week's game and is likely done for the season.  I was really glad to read that they are still going to let him travel and be the team captain for the game.

We've played UTEP twice, beating them in 1984 (20-17) and again in 2000 (47-17), both at Kyle Field.  This season, the Miner'sare not a very good football team.  In fact, they're really bad.  They're 1-6 on the season but their losses have come to some other really bad teams (2-5 New Mexico, 2-5 Tulsa, 3-5 La Tech, & 3-5 UTSA).

This is a game to use to build on the confidence we gained last weekend on defense and to let Joeckel and Hill get more live snaps.