The UNM football team put up 20 points against San Diego State, the second highest output for the Lobos this season.
And to think, it was on former head coach Rocky Long, now San Diego State defensive coordinator.
But the Lobos still came in four points short of a win.
The Lobos’ 23-20 loss to the Aztecs puts UNM at 0-8 overall and 0-4 in the Mountain West Conference.
“It has been pretty consistent of why we are not winning,” said head coach Mike Locksley. “Winning is a by-product of preparation and executing the plan. Most of the time, the biggest thing that is really missing is the confidence.”
With 2:04 left in the game, the Lobos were down three points and took over on their own 15-yard line. The Lobos looked to erase the memory of their last fourth-quarter, two-minute drill with the game on the line.
Against New Mexico State earlier in the season, the Lobo offensive operated efficiently to get Lobo kicker James Aho into field goal range with seconds left in the game. But he failed to convert.
Unfortunately, Aho didn’t even get a chance to miss the field goal on Saturday. After a promising start to the hurry-up offense that pushed the Lobos 35 yards to midfield, UNM was flagged for a personal foul, pushing the Lobos back 15 yards.
That spelled the end of the night for UNM.
Locksley said the Lobos’ two-minute offense worked well against other opponents.
“I was very confident,” Locksley said. “Unfortunately we gave up a 14-yard penalty and take a sack. Those types of things just kill us. If you watch us operate our two-minute drill — that is one of the brightest parts of the team. When we get in the two-minute mode, for whatever reason, we tend to become a different team.”
On paper, the Lobos made good on the statistical categories that have plagued them throughout the season — third down conversions, time of possession, and first and third quarter points. They improved everywhere except in the win column.
The Lobos have lost the time of possession battle by an average of eight minutes per game. They held the ball seven minutes more than the Aztecs on Saturday. The only other time UNM dominated that statistic by a significant margin was at Texas Tech.
Up to Saturday’s game, the Lobos converted 24 percent of their third downs. That number shot up to 45 percent (9-of-20) against SDSU.
In the past, the Lobos struggled coming out of the locker room in the first and third quarters. Before Saturday’s game, UNM scored only 30 of their 104 points in the first and third quarter. But they put up 13 against the Aztecs in the first and third, 10 of those coming in third quarter.
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The Lobos were most productive in that quarter. Midway through the third, Aho booted three points through the uprights after a 62-yard drive that ate up five minutes on the clock.
One possession later, the Lobos marched the ball 75 yards into the end zone off a 5-yard pass from quarterback Donovan Porterie to wide receiver Daryl Jones, giving UNM a 20-16 lead in the third quarter.
But the Aztecs won the offensive battle in the second and fourth quarter, and that proved to be enough.
The Aztecs put up 16 of their 23 points in the second quarter, including a safety off a botched Lobo punt in the end zone.
The final dagger through the Lobos’ hearts, however, came on wide receiver DeMarco Sampson’s 4-yard touchdown catch midway through the fourth, giving the Aztecs a 23-20 lead.
“Winning just doesn’t happen,” Locksley said. “Players tend to think or hope that the other team makes the mistake to give them the win. Winning isn’t typically something that is given to you. You have to take it. You have to make the play. … Losing definitely doesn’t teach you how to win. But there is also a process to winning which we have to learn.”
