EL PASO, Texas - With one game left on the schedule for the Miners after a painful 57-28 home loss to the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, UTEP (5-6, 2-5 CUSA) faces off with the University of Central Florida (4-7, 2-5 CUSA) in the nationally televised (CBS Sports Network, 5 pm MT) regular season finale for both teams.

UCF is coming off a crushing loss to East Carolina 38-31, as the Pirates shut the door on the Golden Knights bowl chances.  Head Coach George O’Leary is hoping his team can bounce back from a disappointing season and end the year on a high note.

“In regards to this season, it’s been a very frustrating season. We’ve lost six games by a total of 31 points. That’s one possession or one defensive stop really. I think our players have played really hard, but we have tried to build our program on not making mistakes, no penalties and not beating yourself, and we really haven’t gotten that accomplished this season. We’re just very young and immature in some areas where we have hurt ourselves with penalties or mental mistakes. But we’re going to head into our 12th game which is Senior Day and I expect those guys to play hard like they have all year,” O’Leary said earlier this week.

In what has been an up and down year for the Golden Knights offense, sophomore quarterback Jeff Godfrey has struggled this season after a productive freshman campaign passing for 2159 yards with 13 touchdowns and 8 interceptions in 2010.  This year, Godfrey has seen a drop off in his play when passing the ball throwing for 1845 yards with only five touchdowns to go with four interceptions.  He is still a threat on the ground with 406 yards and 9 rushing touchdowns, but this has not been the type of season UCF was expecting from the second year signal caller.

Part of Godfrey’s drop off in the passing game has been Coach O’Leary’s decision earlier this season to rotate freshman quarterback Blake Bortles into the mix. Bortles has played in eight games this season passing for 800 yards with five touchdowns and three interceptions, including a 248-yard, two touchdown passing performance in a 30-29 loss to East Carolina two weeks ago.

The UTEP defense will have to prepare for both quarterbacks as O’Leary will look to confuse the Miners with different looks from his offense as he mixes up the pass and the run.  After giving up 500 yards to Tulsa last week the defense will need to play big to keep the Miners in the game.

While the UCF offense will present some problems for the UTEP defense, the Miners offense should be more concerned with the Golden Knights defense which ranks among the top 20 in the nation in several defensive categories, including total defense (11^th), scoring defense (12^th), pass efficiency defense (13^th) and rushing defense (19^th).

Following a lackluster offensive performance last week versus Tulsa, the offense will need a spark in Orlando later this evening. The possible spark could be the return of injured quarterback Nick Lamaison who was able to practice this week and barring a setback prior to the game should get the starting nod.  If Lamaison does not play, backup Carson Meger will be ready to start versus the Golden Knights.

“He’s [Lamaison] better now. He ran yesterday with the team, and we’ll just have to see how he moves around. If he [Lamaison] can’t practice much this week, we’ll start Carson Meger. He played pretty well [against Tulsa], just not good enough. He’s a competitor and tried as hard as he could. Sometimes that’s all you can ask,” Price said at Monday’s press conference regarding his quarterback situation.

UCF may be out of the bowl picture, but O’Leary and his team will do everything in their power to send their seniors out with a win as they look to play spoilers in their last home game of the season.  UTEP on the other hand is playing for their bowl lives and will have to play at a high level in an extremely tough road game to punch their ticket for an elusive bowl invitation.  If the Miners can get off to a fast start and hold on, Price will take UTEP to back to back bowl games for the first time since his first two seasons at the helm (2004 and 2005).

UCF and UTEP will be meeting for the third time with each team winning one home game apiece.  UCF won the only matchup in Orlando, a 36-20 triumph back on November 24, 2007.

Josh Puga can be reached at show@minerillustrated.com and on Twitter at @jpuga1966.