Coach Batten was hired to take the program to a place of winning after of 12 consecutive winless seasons of bad hires. Tennessee had not seen a winning season since 2006.

The game kicked off with the Miners kicking off to Tennessee. The Vols got it down to the Miners red zone and Brandon Williams discovered he wanted to throw it to the other team. He did so and the UTEP CB Foster took it 105 yards back the other way to start the game off with a 7-0 lead.

After a bit of back and forth, TN got on the board with a seven yard scamper by Brandon Williams. After that, UTEP had a 43 yard bomb that was completed for a score to put them up for good. After that, UTEP feasted off Brandon WIlliams and had two more Interception returns for touchdowns for 41 and 99 yards respectively.

Late in the fourth, UTEP added one more score to make it 35-7. Tennessee's Eugene Brant had a 10 yard scamper with 1:03 left in the game to make the final score a respectable 35-14.