ARCHULETA: Could Jason Eck Be UNM Football’s Last Coach? If the Armadillos Can Join the Pac-12, Anything’s Possible

In case you missed it, a bit a jarring news came across the college athletics landscape last week – at least, it should be jarring to University of New Mexico fans.

Texas State is in discussions to join the Pac-12.

No, not the fictitious Armadillos of the 1991 movie, “Necessary Roughness,” starring Scott Bakula (Google him), Sinbad (Google him) and supermodel Kathy Ireland as the team’s female kicker.

It is, however, the Texas State – the artist formerly known as “Southwest Texas State.” A Division I-AA (now known as Football Championship Subdivision) school that once employed a football coach named Dennis Franchione.

Remember him, Lobo fans? (See – 1997 Western Athletic Conference Mountain Division Championship, coach that put Brian Urlacher in a Lobo uniform).

It is the school that, as Texas State (by then dropping the “Southwest”) visited University Stadium on a record-setting night in August of 2003 where the Lobos beat the Bobcats 72-8.

Record-setting in the fact that another talented female kicker, UNM’s Katie Hnida, became the first woman to score a point in a Division I-A (FBS) game with a pair of extra points.

Two female kickers in one sports article. Truth is sometimes more astounding than fiction.

All this to say, that Texas State team is set to join the Pac-12, which rejected New Mexico as a potential member.

Perhaps, Lobo football fans haven’t connected the dots because they’re still aghast over the one-year tenure of Benedict Bronco Mendenhall. So, while the once insignificant Texas State is joining the Pac-12, New Mexico is a school that football coaches leave after one season.

First-year Athletic Director Fernando Lovo, by most accounts, found a solid replacement in Jason Eck, who led Idaho (still an FCS member, last we checked) to a 26-13 record and three FCS playoff appearances.

He seems personable and understands the value of getting out in the community and promoting the program. He joined a recent Pit Press on-location podcast in a day’s notice to chants of “Everyone’s a Lobo, woof, woof, woof!”

Eck’s already ahead of Mendenhall and Bob Davie, both of whom treated the Lobo community only as an acquaintance.

Lobo fans are hoping Eck can bring back the glory years of modern Lobo football, when Franchione (1992-97) and Rocky Long (1998) roamed the sidelines and combined for six bowl appearances.

Franchione bolted after one. Long produced five, only to be run out of town by former AD Paul Krebs. And yet, the glory years resulted in an overall record of 98-105.

Lovo and UNM need the 47-year-old Eck to resurrect Lobo football to help the school position itself for a move upward whenever the next big college football shift takes place. Lovo recently told The Pit Press he thought it was coming in five years or so.

Eck’s Lobo football tenure presents three possibilities: He builds the program to respectability in a few years and finds greener pastures at a more prominent school, making the Lobos look for another coach; he doesn’t build the program, making the Lobos look for another coach; or he falls in love with New Mexico while he has success and stays for longer than a cup of coffee.

The last scenario, given the program’s history, seems unlikely.

And UNM should consider what happens if either of the first two scenarios take place. It’s an easier pill to swallow if Eck has success and leaves, but it just adds another notch to the “UNM is a steppingstone” narrative.

If for some reason Eck can’t make it work, and there’s no current evidence pointing to that conclusion, then what?

In either case.

Football drives the bus in college athletics, and UNM is lagging farther and farther behind chasing the bus.

How much longer does a resource-capped UNM sink money into sustaining a football program forever in the shadow of Lobo men’s basketball? How long does the school resist the urge to become a basketball only school, redirect resources and start chasing a seemingly more attainable goal of mimicking the Gonzagas of college basketball?

To answer my own headline, I don’t think Eck is UNM’s last football coach. But I don’t know what to think after that.

My hope is that Eck does fall in love with UNM and the community. That he builds job security and has a double-digit tenure in years resembling that of Rocky Long.

Now that’s a script long-suffering Lobo football fans want to see coming to a football stadium near us.