Lobo Football Can’t Secure Final Christmas Gift of 2025, Falls To Minnesota in Rate Bowl
New Mexico’s Damon Bankston (1) takes a Minnesota kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown in the Rate Bowl. Photo: UNM Athletics
Perhaps, the Rate Bowl date of Dec. 26 served as a foreshadowing for the University of New Mexico football team.
After a season filled with great escapes, Lobos had no Christmas magic left.
Minnesota quarterback Drake Lindsey floated a perfect 12-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Smith in overtime to lead the Gophers to a 20-17 over UNM on Friday at Chase Field.
The season ended the same way it began for the Lobos: empty-handed against a Big Ten foe but a future brimming with optimism. New Mexico opened the season with a 34-17 loss at nationally ranked Michigan.
“I thought we fought our tail off today; just came up a little bit short,” UNM coach Jason Eck said. “I thought we played particularly well on defense. Maybe, we wore down a little bit as the game wore on.”
The Lobos held Minnesota to 252 yards of total offense but could muster only 204 yards vs. the Gophers defense.
Running back Darius Taylor rushed for 116 yards and a touchdown on 24 carries to help Minnesota control the second half.
With the game tied at 14 to end regulation, UNM lost the OT coin toss and received the ball first, managing only six yards and settling for a 36-yard Luke Drzewiecki field goal.
Minnesota faced a third-and-8 from the Lobos 12 on its possession when Lindsey stepped up and found Smith in the back of the end zone, in between a trio of defenders, capping a heartbreaking end to UNM’s storybook season.
UNM (9-4) appeared poised for another fantastic finish against Minnesota (8-5) but simply could not produce the game-winning play Lobos fans had come to expect during the program’s six-game winning streak that began 69 days ago.
New Mexico’s offense failed to get into the end zone for the first time this season and yet still had a chance to finish its fairytale season in style.
Trailing 14-6 after Taylor’s 5-yard TD run for the Gophers with 13:30 left in the game, the Lobos flipped momentum as it has all season, managing a 100-yard Damon Bankston kickoff return and a trick-play two-point conversion on a Jack Layne pass to Keagan Johnson to tie the game at 14 just 12 second later.
“This is the toughest team I’ve ever been around, just how we respond mentally,” Eck said. “They had all the momentum when they were up by eight. And then we get the kickoff return to get us back in it, and the two-point conversion. We kept fighting, took the lead in overtime. We just needed one more play.”
UNM had a chance with 3:36 left in regulation to break the tie. It advanced the ball to the Minnesota 49, but the drive stalled with 56 seconds left.
Layne struggled vs. Minnesota’s defense, completing 14 of 25 passes for 88 yards and an interception. Lindsey finished 14 of 25 for 147 yards and two TDs, both to Smith.
Bankston and backup QB James Laubstein rushed for 57 yards each to pace UNM.
The usually high-risk, high-reward Lobos were mostly conservative Friday, and its gambles backfired against the Gophers.
Earlier in the fourth, the Lobos embarked on a drive that reached midfield with just less than eight minutes left. Facing a fourth-and-2, Eck sent out the punt team instead of leaving the offense on the field.
Anyone who has followed UNM all season just knew another fake punt was coming. Minnesota also knew.
Lobos linebacker Jaxton Eck took a direct snap and pitched to Deshaun Buchanan, but Gophers star defensive end Anthony Smith was waiting and buried Buchanan for a 10-yard loss.
Jaxton Eck missed most of the second half with a shoulder injury. Meanwhile, Smith had six tackles, four tackles for loss and two sacks for his team.
The fake punt was one of three pivotal bad decisions the Lobos made. After UNM tied the game, it tried a pooch kick that Minnesota’s Pierce Walsh fielded at the 36 and ran back 13 yards to the Gophers 49 to keep field position in their favor the rest of regulation.
The other came in the first quarter on UNM’s first of two first-half, red-zone possessions.
The Lobos had a first-and-goal at the 1. Laubstein came in at quarterback. Instead of going under center, in which Laubstein could’ve tried a sneak or a handoff, he lined up in shotgun for the snap.
The Gophers defense attacked and tackled Laubstein for a 6-yard loss. New Mexico ended up settling for a field goal and a 3-0 lead.
After a Minnesota fumble on fourth down in the second quarter, the Lobos took over at the Gophers 46 and drove to the 12, facing a fourth-and-3. Surprisingly, UNM elected to kick another field goal to take a 6-0 lead with 6:14 left in the half.
The Lobos controlled the first half but trailed 7-6 at intermission after Lindsey and Smith connected on another perfect TD pass in the corner of the end zone from 10 yards out with 1:53 left before the break.
UNM’s hopes of winning its first bowl game outside New Mexico since 1961, finishing with a 10-win season for the first time since 1982 and winning seven straight in a single season for the first time ever will have to wait … at least until 2026.
“Our future’s bright; we’ve got to keep getting our current players better,” Eck said. “We’ve got to do a good job trying to retain guys.”
Another priority: The coaching staff must instill more magic in its offense, hopefully before next Christmas.
“That’s an area we have to improve in the offseason,” Eck said. “We’ve got to be able to move the ball consistently against elite defenses. We’ve got to get better.”
