UTEP football will be taking a 578-mile road trip to the state’s capital to take on No. 7 Texas football on Saturday.

At the helm for Miners is 35-year-old, Texas native Scotty Walden, the third-youngest head coach in the NCAA’s Division 1 FBS level, just behind Florida Atlantic’s Zach Kittley and Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham.

Once a college football player himself, starting as the quarterback for National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Division II Dordt College and then-NCAA Division III Sul Ross State in Alpine, Texas.

It was at his alma mater, Sul Ross State, where Walden got his first taste of coaching on the sideline, becoming the Lobos’ offensive coordinator.

“I knew I wanted to coach coming out of high school,” Walden said four years ago in a Sul Ross PR video. “I was always clung to my coaches because they were kinda like my father figures … and I knew I wanted to be around the game.”

After a year at Sul Ross State, Walden stopped at East Texas Baptist University, where he was officially the youngest head coach in the NCAA and at Southern Mississippi, where he eventually became interim head coach. Walden ultimately found himself in Clarksville, Tennessee, to coach Austin Peay in 2020.

Walden elevated the Governors from a 4-2 COVID-19-shortened debut season to an impressive 9-3 record in his final season. In his last year at Austin Peay, he led the Governors to an undefeated 6-0 record in the United Athletic Conference. In his four seasons in Clarksville, he won two of the football program’s four conference titles.

Walden’s teams at Austin Peay also included an impressive four consensus All-Americans and 28 All-Conference players.

“Regardless of age, you have to be able to create relationships with your players,” Walden said in an introductory press conference when first hired by Austin Peay, according to the Leaf Chronicle. “I think as coaches, that’s our calling, to be positive influencers and role models for these young men. I know my job is judged on wins and losses. That’s life. That’s what I’ve signed up for. But in my book, I’m not judged on wins and losses. I’m judged on kids. And I coach from the heart.”

Walden finally returned to the Lone Star State in December 2023 after being appointed as UTEP’s 27th head football coach. Going 3-9 in his first season with the Miners, Walden has started the year 1-1, hoping to replicate his past coaching successes in El Paso.

While the underdog in this week’s match-up versus the seventh-best team in the nation, the young coach remains undeterred, having full faith in his team.

“As a coach, I think anyone can beat anybody any single week,” Walden said in a press conference on Tuesday. “I threw up every (Group of Five school) that’s beaten a (Power Four school) on Monday to the kids and I’m like, ‘why not us?’”