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From the day he was hired to take over the UTEP football program, Sean Kugler promised an ocean of change. For 11 months he has delivered. Wednesday morning Kugler made official the biggest, most surprising change yet: True freshman Mack Leftwich is the Miners' new quarterback. A year removed from leading North Allegheny High to the Pennsylvania state championship and earning that state's player of the year honor, the 5-foot-10 Leftwich will lead 24-point underdog UTEP to Conference USA-leading North Texas Saturday. "It's a pretty big surprise," said Leftwich, who did approach Kugler on Sunday about pulling his redshirt. "Obviously we needed to make a change, it was the kind of situation that came up and I said I'd be willing to do it. "In the pre-game I'll be pumped up, but after I get hit a few times I'll settle into the game, it will be fun. ... This will be awesome, hopefully it can really kick start us. If you had asked me two or three weeks ago, I wouldn't have seen this coming." Kugler indicated at Monday's press conference that UTEP's quarterback situation was up for examination following back-to-back seven-point games in the wake of the injury to Jameill Showers, hardly surprising considering Blaire Sullivan had thrown four interceptions in 26 passing attempts. The assumption at that point was that second-year freshman Garrett Simpson would get his shot, but Kugler turned to the scout team and opted to burn Leftwich's redshirt. Leftwich is the son of first-year offensive line coach Spencer Leftwich. Read more http://www.elpasotimes.com/latestnews/ci_24465381/utep-freshman-mack-leftwich-start-quarterback-against-north

If one has been around the UNT football program for the last several years, Spencer Leftwich is a familiar name. UNT’s former offensive line coach played a big role in UNT’s four-year run as Sun Belt Conference champions back in the early 2000s and then came back for a brief stint before quickly getting out of dodge the first chance he got, taking a job at Tulsa. Lefty, who is a great guy and just as good a coach, is now the offensive line coach at UTEP. What makes the connection all the more interesting is that UTEP coach Sean Kugler today named Lefty’s son Mack Leftwich the Miners starting quarterback for Saturday’s game between UNT and UTEP. Bret Bloomquist of the El Paso Times has the news. Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2013/11/leftys-son-to-start-against-unt-soccer-team-to-play-today-in-c-usa-tourney.html/