UTEP's 21-17 loss to Louisiana Tech on Saturday featured both the new and the familiar.
What's new is a Miner team that is faster, better, tougher, more resilient, more confident and far, far better than it has been in half a decade. That's enabled them to cut the gap between themselves and the league's elite from a mile to one or two rungs.
What's familiar is that UTEP still struggles to move the football, its discipline broke down at key times and it ended up on the wrong end of the scoreboard again as the Miners fell to 3-2.