Poor QB play dooms New Mexico State to 0-4 after 42-25 loss to New Mexico

If somebody would have told me the Aggies would be 0-4 at this point in the season I would not have believed you. I don’t think anybody saw the kind of undisciplined play from this team and the struggles at quarterback coming. It’s led a lot of people on Twitter to say...

I would agree. But who is to blame? It’s not the coaching staff. We lost our two leaders—Tyler Rogers and Larry Rose—two truly generational players by NM State football standards. Nobody else has stepped up. Romero clearly is not the answer at QB and neither is Nick Jeanty.

Perhaps it’s time to put Josh Adkins out there and let him build his leadership skills and play for the future (Remember, we can still redshirt Romero because he’s only played in four games) but who knows. This team seems to have lost it’s confidence and its resiliency. Saturday showed us that.

Game Review

The Battle of I-25 started out as good as it possibly could. On the Lobos’ first possession of the game, Roy Lopez batted a pass out of the air which was caught and returned for a touchdown by Terrill Hanks. A huge boost for a team with a struggling offense.

The defense then came through again, forcing a Lobo punt. The Aggie offense would then go 57 yards in six plays to push the lead to 14-0.

Then it was all downhill from there.

A poor punt from the Aggies own 13 yard line gave the Lobos the ball at the NMSU 30, allowing them to score a touchdown in five plays and get right back into the game.

NMSU still had some fight left in them at this point, answering with a nine play, 58 yard drive and a field goal to lead 17-7 after the first quarter.

The Aggies would then force a punt but threw a pick on the next drive giving the Lobos another short field. They would score and pull within three, 17-14.

Then the offense just seemed to implode. Another interception—five thrown on the day by three Aggie quarterbacks—gave UNM ANOTHER short field and they easily took the lead with a six yard rush, 21-17.

That lead would hold until halftime but the game was already done. The Aggies would only score once more on a nice catch and run by Jason Huntley.

NM State did have a chance to pull ahead after a Roy Lopez fumble recovery but the offense would stall and the field goal attempt would fail, dampening the momentum made by the play.

The Lobos had scoring “drives” of 30 yards (poor punt), 27 yards (INT), six yards (INT), and zero yards (INT TD). That’s 28 points in a game decided by 20.

UNM didn’t win this game, NM State lost it.

The Lobos only had two true scoring drives and they came in the second half. Otherwise, their drives all ended in punts or turnovers. That’s the frustrating part of this game.

Now the Aggies have to play UTEP in the “Toilet-Bowl-In-The-Sun” (my new name for the Sun Bowl), a game that they can’t lose. If they do, I’m afraid all hope will be lost.

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