EJ Colson Leads UTEP Football Into Mountain West Bounce-Back Season

LAS VEGAS — EJ Colson did not arrive at UTEP to manage a rebuild. He arrived to lead a bounce back.

The Miners are entering the Mountain West after consecutive losing seasons, but the expectations inside the program do not reflect a team asking for several years to become competitive. UTEP has already decided who will lead its offense, returned one of its most explosive playmakers and built a locker room that believes last season should become a setback rather than the start of another prolonged climb.

Colson stands at the center of that belief after earning the starting quarterback job following spring practice. The decision completed a journey that took him from UCF to Incarnate Word and back to the Football Bowl Subdivision, and UTEP is counting on the experience from each stop to provide something the offense has lacked: a quarterback capable of creating explosive plays, protecting the football and bringing the rest of the unit together.

Colson does not view the starting job as permission to begin proving himself. He views it as confirmation of what he continued to believe even when his path moved away from the level where his career began.

“I wouldn’t say it was a confidence boost,” Colson told The Scarlet Standard during an appearance on Rebel Daily Drive at Mountain West Football Media Days. “It was proving myself right. That’s all I could do. My confidence is always going to be high because of the player that I am, but I’m blessed to be named that coming out of the spring.”

That confidence is important for a program entering a new conference with no interest in easing into the transition. The Mountain West will bring unfamiliar opponents, different defensive systems and a larger weekly stage, but UTEP does not believe the move requires the Miners to lower their expectations while the roster adjusts.

The program is not joining the league merely hoping to show it belongs. UTEP believes it can contend immediately, and Kam Thomas described a standard that reaches far beyond incremental improvement. The Miners want to win the Mountain West, become the highest-rated Group of Five team in the country and place themselves in the College Football Playoff conversation.

“That’s the only expectation,” Thomas said. “We want to be the highest-rated G5. We want to make it to the playoffs. We want to win the conference championship, and we want to make it to a bowl game. We practice that way every day. That’s our standard.”

Those goals are aggressive for a program coming off a 2-10 season, but UTEP does not believe its recent record captures what the current roster can become. The Miners have changed the most important position on the field, returned players who lost time to injury and added new talent without abandoning the foundation Scotty Walden has spent his first two seasons trying to establish.

That distinction shapes the way UTEP views 2026. This is not a complete demolition followed by an indefinite waiting period. The Miners believe the structure is already in place and that the right quarterback can accelerate everything around it.

Colson’s path has prepared him for that responsibility. He began his career at UCF with the attention attached to a talented young quarterback, but the opportunity he expected did not develop the way he envisioned. Moving to Incarnate Word required him to step away from the FBS and reconsider how he approached each practice, meeting and opportunity.

The experience changed the way he viewed time and forced him to understand how quickly an opportunity can disappear. Colson learned that talent alone does not guarantee a player will remain on the path he expected when his career began.

“Going from the FBS level to the FCS level, it was kind of like a step back,” Colson said. “You have to realize that and not take any day for granted. You just keep working every day, no matter what.”

Colson turned that step backward into the production that brought him to El Paso. He developed as a passer, became a proven starter and demonstrated that he could lead an offense rather than simply compete for an opportunity to enter a game. UTEP now needs that development to continue at the Mountain West level.

His dual-threat ability gives the Miners options that extend beyond designed quarterback runs. Colson’s mobility can affect a defense before he keeps the football because defenders must respect the possibility that he can escape the pocket or punish an undisciplined edge.

He wants his presence to influence every snap, including the plays on which someone else receives the ball. That means carrying out fakes, forcing defenders to account for him and remaining capable of creating when the original design breaks down.

“Just being a playmaker and making sure my presence is felt,” Colson said. “Whether I’m handing the ball off and carrying out my fake, making plays outside the pocket, making plays inside the pocket or having to use my legs, I feel like that’s good.”

The physical ability is only one reason UTEP believes Colson can change the direction of the offense. Thomas said the quarterback has already brought the group together in a way the Miners had been missing. Colson has not waited for the season to begin before assuming ownership of the unit, and his leadership has become part of the offense’s daily identity.

“I think EJ has done a really good job being a leader,” Thomas said. “I think that’s what we were missing these past few seasons from our quarterback. He’s done a phenomenal job bringing the offense together, and I think we’re genuinely jelling together.”

That endorsement matters because Thomas has experienced the frustration attached to UTEP’s recent seasons. He understands what the offense looked like when the Miners struggled to develop consistency and how quickly one mistake could interrupt an entire possession.

Thomas sees something different with Colson. The quarterback can run, throw and identify what the defense is trying to accomplish, giving UTEP the ability to attack several areas of the field without relying on one player or one style to carry the entire offense.

“I think we’re going to be explosive,” Thomas said. “I know we’re going to be really good this year because we brought in a guy at quarterback.”

That confidence also reflects what Thomas expects from himself after an injury ended his 2025 season almost immediately. Thomas had already established himself as one of UTEP’s most dangerous players before the injury, and his role as a Miner Back allows the offense to use him as a receiver, runner and return specialist.

UTEP can move him around the formation and force defenses to identify where he is before every snap. His return gives Colson a proven playmaker capable of turning a short completion into an explosive gain and changing field position on special teams.

Thomas said he has recovered fully and regained the speed that helped make him an all-conference return specialist. He no longer speaks like a player managing his way back from an injury. He believes the version of himself that emerged before last season has returned.

“I’m good. I’m back and ready,” Thomas said. “I’m 100 percent ready for the season. I’m back, ready to roll and back running 22, 23 miles per hour. We’re good.”

Thomas’ expectations are as ambitious as the ones he established for the team. He wants to earn all-conference recognition as both a receiver and returner, but he does not view those honors as the limit of what he can accomplish.

He wants to become an All-American, win the Jet Award and prove that the injury delayed his rise rather than ended it. Thomas is not preparing for 2026 simply to recover the role he previously held. He wants to establish himself nationally.

“I want to go bigger than all-conference,” Thomas said. “I want to be an All-American. I want to win the Jet Award. I want to win all those types of awards, and I push myself every day to win those awards. I want my name to be known.”

Colson and Thomas give UTEP two players with something personal to prove, but the Miners’ expectations are not being built around individual redemption alone. The program believes the current locker room is capable of supporting a quick turnaround.

UTEP has added new players at several positions, but Thomas does not describe the roster as a disconnected collection of transfers trying to establish individual roles. He described it as the best locker room he has experienced.

“I think this has probably been the best locker room I’ve been part of,” Thomas said. “There’s no hate. Everybody wants to see each other win. If I see somebody in my position room make a play, I’m just as happy as if I made the play.”

That matters for a team trying to accelerate its progress. A rebuilding program can afford to spend a season identifying which players fit together, but UTEP does not believe it needs that much time. The Miners need new players to establish relationships quickly, accept competition and understand that another player’s success does not reduce their own importance.

Thomas sees that happening through healthy competition. One player’s progress creates motivation for the next rather than resentment, and the players are pushing one another without allowing competition for playing time to divide the roster.

“It’s healthy competition,” Thomas said. “Everybody wants to see everybody eat. That’s the type of competition we have in our locker room right now.”

The relationships extend beyond practices and offseason workouts. Thomas said UTEP has become a team that spends time together, regularly gathering for cookouts, pool days and other activities that allow players to connect without football becoming the only thing they share.

“We’re a really big cookout team,” Thomas said. “We’ll pull up to the pool, cook out, play games and hang out as a team. We’re a brotherhood.”

That connection will be tested immediately because UTEP’s move into the Mountain West does not begin with a forgiving schedule designed to allow Colson and the offense to settle gradually. The Miners will travel to Oklahoma and Michigan early in the season, facing two opponents capable of exposing every weakness before conference play begins.

Those games could easily be presented as measuring sticks or opportunities to collect experience before the more important portion of the schedule. Thomas rejected that framing because UTEP does not want to establish a standard that changes depending on the name across the field.

“We’re going into those games to win,” Thomas said. “We’re not going to back down from anybody just because they’re Oklahoma. If we played the New England Patriots, we would go in there to win. It’s a football game.”

That does not mean UTEP is ignoring the challenge. Oklahoma and Michigan will have deeper rosters, greater national expectations and more recent evidence that they can compete at the highest level. The Miners simply do not believe acknowledging those advantages requires them to enter expecting to lose.

“They’re a good team, and we’re a good team as well,” Thomas said. “It’s a matter of who is going to be the better team that day.”

The early schedule will reveal whether UTEP’s confidence is supported by an offense ready to function around Colson. He must show that his production at Incarnate Word translates to the FBS, but the responsibility does not rest entirely on him.

The offensive line must protect him, the running game must prevent defenses from treating every possession as an obvious passing situation and Thomas must remain healthy enough to provide the explosive element UTEP missed last season. Colson’s job is to bring those pieces together.

UTEP named him the starter early enough for the offense to avoid spending the entire offseason divided by uncertainty. Every receiver knows who will be delivering the football, every offensive lineman knows whose movement and communication must become familiar, and every playmaker can build timing around the same quarterback.

That stability gives the Miners a better opportunity to enter the Mountain West ready to compete rather than still searching for an identity. The conference move raises the standard around the program, but it also gives UTEP a fresh stage.

The Miners are no longer carrying only the weight of what happened in Conference USA. They have new opponents, new environments and a chance to redefine how the program is viewed, but UTEP does not want that definition to begin with patience.

The Miners believe they have a quarterback whose career has already required him to recover from a difficult turn. They have a dynamic playmaker returning from injury, a locker room Thomas believes is built around brotherhood and a coaching staff that has made its expectations clear.

The record says UTEP must bounce back, while the move to the Mountain West says the Miners must do it against stronger and unfamiliar competition. Colson gives them a reason to believe the change can happen immediately.

He has already gone from the FBS to the FCS and returned. He has already earned the starting job and begun establishing himself as the leader Thomas believes the offense lacked. Now he must prove that UTEP’s move into the Mountain West can become the beginning of a new result without being labeled the beginning of another rebuild.

The Miners are not asking for time to become relevant. With Colson at quarterback, they expect to arrive in the Mountain West ready to compete.

Watch the full Rebel Daily Drive interview with UTEP quarterback EJ Colson and Miner Back Kam Thomas: