It’s not that the north end of the stadium has yet to be completed or that the LoboVision screen waits to be fired up; making University Stadium into a bowl-like atmosphere.
The UNM football team’s real unfinished business hangs on the near-accomplishments of last year’s Lobos, and whether this year’s team is as bowl-like as its home stadium.
Players talked of being handfuls of points away from a conference championship. Coaches talked of new schemes. And newcomers, like junior-college transfer wide receiver Michael Brunker, talked of what is seemingly a new type of excitement.
“I have felt the excitement since my first trip here,” Brunker said. “People were saying, ’This is our year,’ and the coaches and fans all seem to have this same attitude.”
With Rudy Caamano firmly entrenched in the quarterback position, a defense that returns many key players, including all-conference defensive end Brian Johnson and all-conference cornerback
Stephen Persley, and a stalwart ensemble of running backs, the question is not whether the Lobos have talent.
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It is whether that talent can give the team the grease it needs to turn the wheels of a championship team.
“A big difference is the attitude,” Caamano said. “Last year, we were confident, we thought we could be good. But the fact that we hadn’t had success, and that there weren’t many reasons for us to be excited, made us hesitant. Now, we don’t want just to be competitive, we want to win and compete for a conference championship.”
Much of the focus will be on offensive coordinator Dan Dodd.
He has the unenviable task of re-igniting a Lobo offense that statistically stayed stuck near the bottom of Division-I rankings last season.
“We’ve made tremendous strides from last year,” Dodd said. “I think the difference in going into camp last year versus this year is, last year we were trying to figure out how our kids fit the system. And right now we understand how they fit the system, and we’ve come up with a program tailor-made to this group of kids.”
He said that not having a quarterback controversy this year, and Caamano’s experience will be a boon to the offense.
“Quarterback is an earn-while-you-learn position — the one way to get better at that position is to get reps, and you need to get in the saddle on game day to improve,” Dodd said. “So what Rudy has done is he’s got 10 starts under his belt and that’s going to lead to confidence. He’s worked really hard to improve his shortcomings and I’m really excited about his progress.”
With seniors Larry Davis and Rob Caston gone from the Lobos’ receiving corps, six-foot, two-inch tall sophomore Rashaun Sanders and the equally-sized Brunker will add height and athleticism to the position along with returnees Dwight Counter and Terrance Thomas.
The Lobos saw few big plays coming out of the passing game last year, so the additions could help to reverse that trend.
“Dwight Counter had a good spring, he’s steady and reliable,” Dodd said. “Terrance Thomas has emerged as one of the top three — he’ll start on the inside slot, and outside we’ve got Sanders and Brunker who have both shown us that they can do the job.”
Sanders, a sophomore, appears ready to take on the role.
“I’m big, fast and I run good routes; I think my game is well-rounded,” Sanders said of his strengths at wide receiver. “In the spring, we saw it immediately, an improvement on offense, with all the hard work we put in. The passing game developed so quickly that it was amazing, to tell you the truth.”
Sanders said Caamano has markedly improved from last year.
“Basically he’s the offensive leader,” Sanders said. “He has a cool head under pressure, and when things get bad he’s not a guy that’s going to get paranoid on the field. He stays calm. That’s what we need in a leader.”
Defensively, there is no question that last year’s squad exceeded expectations.
The team had its best performance, statistically, in 17 years, and finished 17th overall in the nation in total defense.
Though the team lost linebacker Mike Barnett and nose tackle Henry Stephens to graduation, and safety Brandon Ratcliff, last year’s Mountain West co-freshman of the
year, to academic ineligibility, the Lobo defenders will not have the benefit of sneaking up on anyone.
So that leaves those pesky preseason predictions.
Most publications predict a sixth or seventh place finish for the Lobos.
Many predicted a seventh or eighth-place finish last year and the Lobos finished tied for fifth.
Yet this year, Lobo players seem to be putting even less credence into any predictions made about the team.
“Those guys are not on the field with us every day, so they don’t know,” junior linebacker Charles Moss said. “I really don’t care about preseason predictions at all. I don’t read the magazines and stuff. Based on last year and what we’re doing this year, I feel like we’re ready to get to a bowl game.”
