Before last Saturday’s game against Colorado State, head football coach Mike Locksley said the key to winning would be for the Lobos not to be a detriment to themselves.
The message did not reach the players, apparently, because the team had six fumbles, losing three of them in the 14-10 loss.
Quarterback Tarean Austin might have been the worst of the group, with just 23 seconds left when the Lobos were 15 yards away from scoring the winning touchdown.
“The one side of the ball that I didn’t think showed up was the offensive side of the ball,” Locksley said. “I thought we moved the ball pretty well throughout the course of the game, but we had way too many penalties, and obviously when you fumble the ball three times, twice inside your own red zone, you don’t give yourself a chance to win.”
The first quarter was full of special teams errors from both sides, as CSU’s Ben DeLine missed a 41-yard field goal on their first drive. The Lobos punted on the ensuing possession, but the Rams’ Momo Thomas fumbled the kick, which was recovered by UNM’s Zoey Williams.
The recovery led to a 48-yard field goal attempt by kicker James Aho, which was blocked.
With the quarter winding down, the Lobos put a good drive together all the way down to CSU’s 3-yard line. On second and goal, Austin handed the ball off to running back Crusoe Gongbay, but Gongbay fumbled the ball on the 1-yard line.
“We made bad mistakes that set us back and brought us down,” Austin said. “It takes doing the little things and the big things will fall into place.”
The game came to life in the last 4:16 of the half when 17 points were put on the board.
Aho made a 33-yard field goal before the Rams marched down the field on a five-play, 69-yard drive to take the lead with a 33-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Pete Thomas to wide receiver Crock Gillmore.
With just 1:32 left in the half, the Lobos made a run of their own on a seven-play, 80-yard drive which resulted in a 27-yard touchdown pass from Austin to Lamaar Thomas, to take a 10-7 lead into the half.
The touchdown was the first for the Lobos in an opening day game since 2005.
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Even though the team lost, Locksley said he was happy with its attitude.
“I thought overall the atmosphere for this game was great,” he said. “It was great to see our fans come out and support our players. I thought our players played with great effort for four quarters, which is something that we are going to need to be able to do to be the type of team we want to be.”
The defense stepped up and forced CSU to three and outs on its two drives in the third quarter, but the offense couldn’t match its quality.
Last year, the Lobos defense gave up over 300 yards on the ground to CSU, but this year held the Rams to just 90.
“When you look at the way this game transpired, I thought we played well enough on defense to win the game,” Locksley said. “I thought we tackled well on defense and I thought we played great team defense. On the kicking game, I thought we were much improved and limited the big plays.”
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Rams had the chance to tie the game with a 28-yard field goal, but again DeLine missed it, wide left this time.
The Lobos failed to muster any offense and punted the ball to CSU for what would be the game-winning drive, with 12:56 left in the game.
The 11-play, 40-yard drive was capped off with a 2-yard run by running back Chris Nwoke and would give CSU the 14-10 lead for good.
UNM still had a chance to win, and went for it on 4th and 14, on CSU’s own 29, but Austin was sacked — one of 10 sacks in the game.
CSU tried to run out the clock, but on a 4th and one the Lobos stopped the Rams on their own 45-yard line.
The stop gave the Lobos the ball with 1:57 left in the game, only 45 yards away from the end zone.
Austin drove the team down the field with back-to-back runs, totaling 24 yards. With his third run of the drive, he got his team within 5 yards of the end zone just to see his run called back for holding.
Austin finished the game with 105 yards rushing and 20 of 31 passing, for 179 yards.
On 3rd and 6 from the 15, Austin dropped back and fumbled the ball after he was hit, ending any hope for a Lobo comeback.
The Lobos gained 329 yards compared with the Rams’ 270, but were only five of 17 from third down.
Linebacker Dallas Bollema, who led the team with 13 tackles, said the team would fix its mistakes for the next game.
“I thought the defense did well, and we were all flying around really well, and the coaches had a good game plan set up for us,” he said. “We didn’t see anything that we weren’t prepared for.
Tonight we beat ourselves, and that’s something we have to fix come Monday.”
