Should the New Mexico State Aggies and New Mexico Lobos Ditch Their Football Programs?



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When you happen to be in a big football state, recruiting and winning seem to come easy. But in New Mexico, football is not the top sport in town and recruiting definitely does not come easy. So is there an argument to be made to ditch the sport altogether?

For New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico, two football programs in two different conferences try to recruit against the top dogs in each of those conferences.

For the New Mexico Lobos, they have to compete against TCU, BYU and BYU while the New Mexico State Aggies have to deal with Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada and Hawaii. Both schools aren't going to get the top recruits even in their own state. They are not big football schools and high school players know it.

In 2010, the Lobos became the running joke in college football. It seemed no matter who they were up against, they were getting blown out and embarrassed.

Through the first four weeks of the season, New Mexico had been outscored 225-41 including a 72-0 throttling at the hands of the Oregon Ducks in the very first game of the season.

Their offensive would score more than 20 points just four times all season and their defense gave up 40 or more points six times including two lopsided blowouts at the hands of Oregon, 72-0, and TCU, 66-17.

“We didn’t play well today,” New Mexico coach Mike Locksley said after their loss to TCU. “We didn’t execute on offense, defense, and special plays, and that all starts with me as a head coach.” Locksley could have put that quote on a recorder and played it after each loss during the 2010 season. It would have saved him from answering the same questions week in and week out.

They were outmatched from the first game to the last and it showed as the Lobos were staring at a 1-11 record when the season mercifully came to an end.

For the Aggies, 2010 did not have any better of an experience as their in-state rivals. They finished the season with a 2-10 record and gave up 40 or more points seven times including each of their first four games.

The top teams in the Western Athletic Conference were dominating them from start to finish. They lost games to Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada and Hawaii by an average of 51-10 including lopsided losses to Boise State, 59-0, and Nevada, 52-6.

Both the Lobos and the Aggies had the worst offenses in their respective conferences. New Mexico averaged 15.8 points per game while the Aggies averaging 15.7 points per game. On defense, neither were much better, giving up 44.3 and 39.5 points per game respectively.

The fan bases on both sides have to be wondering if or when they will ever see a winning season from one or both of these programs.

With Boise State joining the Mountain West Conference for the 2011 season and the resurgence of San Diego State, the New Mexico Lobos may see more of the same especially with Fresno State, Nevada, and Hawaii due to join the conference for the 2012 season.

As for New Mexico State, as I wrote about San Jose State possibly ditching their football program, the Aggies may in fact benefit from the four top teams in the conference heading for greener pastures after the conclusion of the 2011 season.

Maybe, just maybe, New Mexico State could see some improvement but is it enough for them to keep football around?

If things do not change and both the Aggies and Lobos continue to struggle in their respective conferences, maybe they need to re-think even having a football team.


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Did Conference Expansion Actually Save San Jose State?

 It has been a long time since the San Jose State Spartans were even a legitimate part of the conversation when it came to their football program in the Western Athletic Conference. Sure there are brought up in certain circles, but those particular conversations are whether or not their football program will continue to operate.

If you follow the WAC you have heard the rumors about the university's athletic department being short on funds. So much so that most believed the football program would not survive much longer.

But with every season that comes around, the Spartans are always able to run a competitive team on the field. Not only that, but second year head coach Mike McIntyre continues to recruit players who want to come to San Jose State and play for him.

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The question now is, how long will San Jose State continue to run out a program that gets little to no support from it's student body and it doesn't help when the school is in a fan base usually reserved for Stanford and Cal.

Popular opinion would lead you to believe there is no reason the football team should continue to operate. They will never be able to battle the likes of Fresno State, Nevada, Hawaii and even Utah State. Even the popular "if you build it, they will come" phrase would hold true for just about every other university except for the one near the heart of Silicon Valley.

Could their fortunes be changing in the coming years? We know Fresno State, along with Nevada and Hawaii will be joining Boise State in the Mountain West Conference after the 2011 season, which will make San Jose State one of the more talented programs in the WAC.

They will have a bigger budget, most of it being used on a substantially larger travel costs according to Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News.

In an article Wilner wrote in November of last year, he correctly sites the addition of new teams such as the University of Texas-San Antonio, Texas State, and Denver to the WAC coming for the start of the 2012 college football season.

When Hawaii departs, San Jose State will be the school who has the best chance of being one of the top programs in the conference. Had it not been for conference expansion this past off season, we may be seeing the end of a football program that used to be rich in tradition.

Coach McIntyre and the Spartans' football program will undoubtedly face one more tough season in the WAC, especially having to deal with rival Fresno State along Nevada, the defending WAC champion coming into 2011, and Hawaii who has always been a tough team to deal with.

So while we used to wonder when SJSU was going away, the question now may become how much can they improve the program and can they be the WAC's next version of Boise State?

The tide could be turning and just in the nick of time. San Jose State needed a miracle to be able to keep the football offices open. They might want to send a 'Thank You' card to BYU because it's quite possible SJSU will get a large pay day for playing a road game up in Provo, UT

While the WAC did not want to lose four of their top programs, SJSU was silently celebrating because the conference's loss will ultimately be their gain.


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Is this Fresno State's Best Chance to Finally Win a Conference Championship?

Fresno State is itching for an outright conference championship and with Boise State out of the mix, maybe the 2011 season is finally going to be their year. Or is it?

When head coach Pat Hill was hired, his goal at Fresno State was going to be turning them into a conference powerhouse. A team who could win conference championships and be a team the city could be proud of.

More than a decade and one shared conference title later, Bulldog fans are wondering what happened to that promise. They are wondering what happened to the teams they were promised and what happened to the team they could be proud of?

Seems the last time they were able to watch, and be excited about, a Fresno State team was 10 years ago when the team was ranked in the top 10 thanks to now NFL quarterback, David Carr. He was arguably the nation's best quarterback and he was breaking school records with every pass and every touchdown he threw.

Since then, Bulldog Stadium has grown quiet and the fans more restless with every year gone by. Some want Hill out as the head coach and for a new era to begin, others will defend him tooth and nail because of the academic success of his players.

While Hill and his coaching staff continue to scratch their heads and wonder how things could have gone so wrong since he took over the program, they may have their best chance at an outright conference championship coming in to the 2011 season.

Boise State, the team who no one can seem to beat, is now a member of the Mountain West Conference and the Bulldogs no longer have to worry about looking up at the boys in blue, hoping for a loss here or there to give them a chance. They can finally make their own destiny.

Make no mistake about it, this isn't going to be a walk in the park. This isn't going to be a year where the team can glide to the end of the season and expect to hold up the Western Athletic Conference trophy. There are still two other schools who will do everything they can to make sure they are the ones celebrating a conference championship at year's end.

The Nevada Wolfpack and Hawaii Warriors have been two teams who have always challenged Fresno State and they have made for some of the best rivalry games the conference has ever seen.

The Wolfpack, however, will be without Colin Kaepernick, their star quarterback who will always be remembered as the one who finally broke through Boise State's iron grip.

As for the Warriors they have one of the best young quarterbacks in college football, Bryant Moniz, who threw for over 5000 yards in 2010 (5,040) to go along with 39 touchdown passes to just 15 interceptions. It didn't hurt that the Warriors had two wide receivers, Greg Salas and Kealoha Pilares, who both finished with more than a thousand yards receiving last season.

The Bulldogs have never had an easy time with either Nevada or Hawaii. While they had their success against them over the years, it's never been enough to get to the top. With one last season remaining for these three schools join the Broncos in the Mountain West, you can bet on all three battling it out for the top spot all year long.

For the Bulldogs, they will usher in a new era under young quarterback Derek Carr. He comes with a ton of hype not only from the media but also from the school itself. He was a highly touted prospect coming out of high school and a player everyone in California's central valley has been looking forward to for quite some time.

Their offense has never been the biggest problem for Fresno State. It's been their defense or lack thereof.

They have struggled mightily against the run over the years, something opposing teams know exactly how to take advantage of. Though they have had their own share of talent in the backfield with former running back, Ryan Mathews, and current running back, Robbie Rouse, the amount of points they can put up just seems to make little difference sometimes.

Pat Hill will have one last chance to prove he can really be the top dog in this conference because once the Bulldogs make the jump to the Mountain West, they will no longer be one of the top dogs. They might be, at best, just another middle of the road team in a mid-major conference.

This is Hill's last chance to deliver on his promise. Though, in the eyes of some especially in Boise, it may come with an asterisk because his program did it without Boise State being in the conference. It would like like a prize fighter retiring and the boxer who could never beat the champ, finally wins the big prize. Yet it doesn't mean quite the same.

The Bulldogs are a talented team and while they may finally put it all together in 2011, they will need to deal with another tough non-conference schedule. In five of their first six weeks of the season, Fresno State will have Cal, Nebraska, Ole Miss, and Boise State. Only one of those, Nebraska, coming on the road.

The big question might be, will the team be too banged up to face their conference schedule or will the be so fired up for the big games they'll forget how to get ready for the small ones?

Though we may not get answers to those questions for several months, Hill continues to show year in and year out that he never backs down from a fight.


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WAC: Four Teams Jumping Off an Already Sinking Ship

Karl Benson, you had your chance to save your small insignificant conference. Instead, you came out looking like a fool and it cost you your top four teams. The only reason anyone knew who the Western Athletic Conference actually was.