Dana Dimel can look out the window of his office and see the mountains of El Paso. It gives him a moment to dream. He’s been here before, standing at ground zero with barely a foothold to begin an ascent up a rock with a peak that’s out of view. 

“There hasn’t been any success here forever and ever,” Dimel said. “A lot of that can be circumstantial.”

And Dimel sees himself as the perfect candidate to alter those circumstances. It’s why he was interested in coming to UTEP in the first place, and why decision-makers in El Paso saw the same. 

The Miners were the only winless team in FBS last season and have just one winning season since 2006. Since 1970, the program has just six winning seasons and hasn’t won a bowl game since 1967. For Dimel, that sounds a lot like Kansas State, where he began his coaching career in 1987, a year after completing his career as an offensive tackle. In his five seasons before catching onto Bill Snyder’s incoming staff as a 26-year-old offensive line coach, he saw the program go 6-47 and go the final 26 games without a win.

“There’s a reason they haven’t had success,” Dimel said. “The biggest thing I bring to the table is, ‘I’m a coach that has a plan.’ I’ve been in these shoes before and been an experienced head coach and been at levels where you have to turn the program around. That’s the thing that suits me best. It’s prepared me to get into it. It compares very, very similarly. K-State was even harder. You’re competing in the Big 8. Here, we don’t have to play Nebraska and Oklahoma every year.”

So, for Dimel, it’s easy to shrug at 0-12 because he doesn’t see 0-12. He sees a program less than four years removed from a winning season, a second-place finish in the division and a trip to a bowl game.

Every new coach talks about culture change, but it’s especially important when you’re taking over a team that hasn’t been inside a winning locker room in almost two years. He believes El Paso is hungry for a winner, but the first step to being embraced by the city is finding belief on a roster that’s been devoid of reasons to believe for much of its time on campus.

“The challenges are getting people to have confidence that that’s going to happen,” Dimel said. “That confidence starts with your team. You only get that through great preparation. It’s coach-speak but it’s true. You can’t wave a magic wand and make it happen. You do it by preparing.”

In the immediate future, it won’t be easy. The Miners enter 2018 without much experienced talent that has a history of production. Last year’s leading passer and receiver are gone, and the defense’s four leading tacklers are gone. 

If Dimel walked in the doors of a hardware store looking to rebuild, he’d be OK asking for one of everything. But you’ve got to hammer in the first nail somewhere. 

Dimel filled out his staff with experience, hiring Mike Canales to run his offense. The two-time interim head coach at North Texas spent last season coaching quarterbacks at Tennessee. He brought Kansas State linebackers coach Mike Cox to campus to be his defensive coordinator. 

Now, he’s intent on turning the Miners’ facility into a place that players want to spend time. 

“We want them to enjoy putting on the pads and going to practice and the direction of the program and have a coach that cares about them that they can have a relationship with,” Dimel said. “I thought that was really important to get across. We’re going to laugh and joke, but we’ll work our tails off at the same time. You can do both.”