UTEP fans abuzz for Texas game

EL PASO - This remote border city has never been one of those college football-crazed places where everything shuts down on game day, parking lots overflow with tailgaters and major events like weddings rarely get scheduled for Saturdays during the season.
You'd never know it this week, though. Football's the talk of this typically basketball-minded town as Texas-El Paso takes a rare turn in the national gridiron spotlight Saturday night by hosting the mighty Texas Longhorns.
"They are huge and we're out here, just a little branch of the university," said 74-year-old Maynard Haddad, a UTEP season ticket holder since 1959 who sported a Miners T-shirt Thursday morning at the car wash he runs with his brother.
The matchup, the third meeting of the schools, was announced two years ago and the hype grown since. Fans lined up for hours last week trying to get seats for the sold-out game. And rumors abound that some Texas fans even gobbled up cheap season tickets just to ensure they would be among the 51,500 people jammed into the Sun Bowl.
Unless UTEP (0-1) pulls off a major upset over No. 10 Texas (1-0), the game isn't likely to shake up the college football world. But it's certainly shaking up El Paso, where fans of both schools are proudly flying their colors.
"I'm a Texas Ex," declared James Perry, who has spent much of the week riding a bicycle around El Paso with a giant Longhorns national championship flag whipping in the wind behind him. "I'm trying to intimidate these Miner fans around here."
Perry, a rodeo clown by trade, said he plans to keep riding around town until kickoff Saturday night.
Miner and Longhorn T-shirts, hats and other paraphernalia have been flying off store shelves. The UTEP athletic department even got in on the act this week with a bright orange shirt emblazoned with a caricature of Bevo, the Longhorn mascot, branded with UTEP's trademark pickax.
Folks have had this date circled on the calendar for a year or more.
Sharon Walker booked her lodging last year, long before her son, senior safety Roddray Walker, was knocked out for the season with a shoulder injury. Still, they'll both be there for the big game.
"He has surgery Thursday, but he said he will be out here Saturday," she said.
Alan Casales, a 22-year-old oil field worker from Bakersfield, Calif., flew to El Paso with two buddies Wednesday to watch their friend, senior kicker Jose Martinez, take on Texas.
"We've been planning this since we heard about the game," Casales said Wednesday as he and his friends watched practice. "Jose said, ‘Hey, if you come to a game, you have to come to this one."'
Haddad, the car wash owner, said he can't remember a game ever getting so much attention in El Paso the past 50 years. And while he's not sure his team can pull off a surprise upset, Haddad said the game can still put El Paso and UTEP on the map.
UTEP coach Mike Price has said he thinks his team can play the bigger, faster Longhorns closely.
Die-hard fans think if the boisterous crowd that has made the Sun Bowl a tough place to play in recent years show up in force, the Miners are likely to have an edge.
And until the game, there's always hope.
"If you want reality, no. But if you want hope and desire and you catch them sleeping, then yes," Haddad said of the Miners' chances. "If we outscore them, we have a hell of a chance."