Lobo Football Could Come Back Big Winners – And Losers – From Vegas
It might be a blasphemous thought surrounding the University of New Mexico football program but could be true, nevertheless.
A win for the upstart Lobos (5-3, 2-2 Mountain West) on Saturday at high powered UNLV (6-1, 2-1) might end up being a significant loss down the road for the UNM program.
The fact that UNM is only a 4.5-point underdog on the road against a one-loss team average 37.1 points per game speaks to the brilliance of first-year coach Jason Eck.
That is precisely the problem. The Lobos entered 2025 with the fewest returning players in the Football Bowl Subdivision with 34. Yet, they are somehow one win away from bowl eligibility.
Great, right?
Along with Eck’s success comes national acclaim this season. He received top billing in this week’s College Football Enquirer podcast in the “Coaches you should watch for” portion of the show.
Eck, Wisconsin graduate, now is tethered to his alma mater as a potential successor to third-year Badgers coach Luke Fickell. Wisconsin is 2-6 overall with a six-game losing, 0-5 and tied for last in the 18-team Big Ten.
D.J. McKinney (4) and Dorian Thomas (7) celebrate after a big play. Photo: Chris Rodarte/Game Pass Media
Fickell is 15-19 at Wisconsin, generously getting credit for the Badgers’ win in the 2022 Guaranteed Rate Bowl even though he coached Cincinnati that year before getting hired at Wisconsin in November.
And now rumor-mill eyes are on Eck, who has the Lobos on the verge of going boldly where no one but he and his staff thought the 2025 team could go.
“I did think a bowl game was a very realistic goal for our first year,” Eck said this week during his weekly news conference. “I do think the current landscape of college football makes it easier to turn around programs than it would have been before the transfer portal back when you had limits, when you had 25 initial scholarships you could sign a year.
“But we’ve still got to win another game. We were 5-7 last year; you don’t come into a job and have the same record or worse than the year before. You’ve got to show improvement.”
UNM did that in a big way during its 33-14 victory over Bronco Mendenhall and Utah State last week. The Lobos scored on offense, defense and special teams and led by double digits from the second quarter on.
But that was at home. UNM didn’t play well in either of its last two MW road games (San Jose State, Boise State). The Lobos lost the turnover battle 3-0 in both games and now faces a Rebels team that boasts a turnover margin of plus-10 (16 takeaways and six giveaways) that is tied for third, nationally.
UNLV quarterback Anthony Colandrea is a faster version of USU’s Bryson Barnes, Eck said. Colandrea is averaging 231.1 passing yards and 58.6 rushing yards per game with 16 total TDs. Jai’Den Thomas (87.9 rushing yards per game) leads a ground game that gets 5.7 yards per play.
Like UNM, however, UNLV’s biggest win on paper is its 30-23 victory at home over UCLA. The Rebels are coming off a 56-31 loss at Boise State but have had two weeks to prepare for a Lobos team coming off its best performance of the season.
A win would make UNM bowl-eligible for the first time in 2016, only magnifying Eck’s name in the coming weeks.
“We love it here,” Eck said in response to a question about his future. “I think it’s going to take something amazing to pull us away from here. I don’t think it’s a negative because most coaches you hear mentioned are because they’re winning.
“I enjoy turning programs around; there’s some satisfaction in that.”
Wisconsin needs a turnaround. UNM, meanwhile, is gearing up to go bowling and still has outside hopes of a conference championship.
A winning tradition is what the program needs to attract a more loyal fan base and help attract more interest from bigger conferences in the ever-changing college athletics landscape.
While the obvious goal for Saturday is to beat UNLV, losing that battle might not be a bad cherry and silver lining to help the program in the war to retain Eck’s services for a few years if his shine stays hidden for a bit longer.
