A lot has been made of the Arizona football passing attack, or the lack thereof, with the brunt of the inefficiency directed at quarterback Brandon Dawkins. In the first half he played like a man determined to shut the haters up.

Dawkins wasn’t perfect, but he was as efficient as he has ever been during his time as a Wildcat. Dawkins threw for two scores and ran another during a second quarter that Arizona dominated. Midway through the first half the signal caller dumped a two-yard touchdown pass to running back J.J. Taylor, found Shun Brown down the middle on a nicely timed seem route, then ran one in from five yards out to put the game seemingly away for Arizona.

Special teams even played a part as Shun Brown had a run that featured a spin move down the sideline as he skipped to the end zone to put the Wildcats firmly ahead 28-0.

Though the defense gave up a few early passes to UTEP quarterback Zack Greenlee, they stiffened up and shut the Miners down for the most part. That was until UTEP struck with their first points with 2:50 left as wide receiver Tyler Batson hauled in a touchdown pass from Greenlee from nine yards out. Despite the score, UA gave up 111 yards in total offense in the first half, 104 coming via the pass.

UTEP had an opportunity to cut it to 14, but Colin Schooler intercepted an ill-advised floating pass and ran it back to the Miner five-yard line. The following session was capped by a Dawkins run, which he reversed field and had to stiff-arm a defender before diving for the Pylon to put Arizona up 35-9 heading into halftime.

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