UTEP fires Dana Dimel after 5th losing season in 6 years

Updated Nov. 26, 2023 2:15 p.m. ET

Associated Press

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — UTEP fired football coach Dana Dimel on Sunday, a day after the end of his fifth losing season in six years.

The Miners finished 3-9 after a 42-28 loss to undefeated Liberty before a sparse crowd at the Sun Bowl. It was the fourth time UTEP failed to win more than three games under Dimel, who had a year left on his contract.

Dimel ended a 16-year absence from head coaching when he took over the Miners in 2018. He had three winning seasons in Wyoming from 1997-99 before three losing years with Houston.

The 61-year-old's combined record at his two Texas stops was 28-75. Dimel inherited a winless team, then went 1-11 in consecutive years before a 3-5 record in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

After going 7-6 with a New Mexico Bowl loss to Fresno State in 2021, the Miners were 5-7 a year ago.

“When he was hired, UTEP football was coming off a winless season, and he built a more competitive team,” said athletic director Jim Senter, who took the job in 2017 and hired Dimel two weeks later. “However, we have not seen the kind of improvement necessary to compete for and win championships.”

Just like with Dimel and most of his predecessors, the new coach will face a long history of losing. UTEP has had seven winning seasons in the past 50 years and has lost at least 10 games 20 times.