After a quarterback battle that went through spring and fall, former five-star recruit Malachi Nelson earns starting nod in opener against Utah State.
After seven months of drama, UTEP’s quarterback battle ended up where it was assumed it would be back in January: Malachi Nelson will get the start when the Miners open up at Utah State on Aug. 30, coach Scotty Walden announced Thursday.
That’s what was expected when Nelson signed with UTEP in January after formalizing his transfer from Boise State, but then it seemed unlikely when he emerged from the spring looking like the fourth quarterback on the roster.
UTEP Miners football quarter back Malachi Nelson (7) throws a pass at practice at the Sunbowl Stadium in El Paso, Texas on August 1, 2025.
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Given more chances in a fall camp that was billed as a five-way battle, the sophomore Nelson, who began his career at USC in 2023, made the most of them. He showed enough steady improvement and enough talent that earned him five stars out of Los Alamitos High School, where he was a two-time Gatorade California Player of the Year, to move past Skyler Locklear, Shay Smith, Cade McConnell and Chad Warner.
Locklear, last year’s starter, will go into the Utah State game as the backup, and Smith is expected to have a role as a Wildcat quarterback. McConnell will start in the same place he started in 2023, as a fourth-teamer, when he eventually rose to a starter. The true freshman Warner presumably will redshirt, as almost all freshmen quarterbacks do.
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Nelson’s ascension to a starter begins to fulfill the immense potential he showed out of high school, but he’s still new to playing at the FBS level. He didn’t get on the field at USC when he was behind eventual No. 1 NFL draft pick Caleb Williams. Then, last season at Boise, he went 12-of-17 passing with one interception in three games.
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At UTEP, he looked out of sorts in the spring, playing for his fourth team in four years, but looked more comfortable at the beginning of fall, then settled in and looked better and better as camp progressed. After the Aug. 9 scrimmage a week into camp he started regularly working with the first team, then stood out in the second scrimmage on Aug. 16.
That roughly equated to the timeline Walden set up for naming a starter, and that came true on Thursday.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Malachi Nelson named starting quarterback for UTEP football
Source: Utah News