There is some good news for the UNM football team this Saturday.
Embattled head coach Mike Locksley, who is 1-17 at UNM, hopes to capitalize on the fact that the Lobos are 13-2 since 1996 following their bye week. Former head coach Rocky Long will make his return to University Stadium as San Diego State’s second-year defensive coordinator.
Locksley said he expects players who are Long holdovers to wait to exchange pleasantries after the game.
“I am sure there will be emotions involved in the game for the players that were here during Rocky’s tenure,” Locksley said.
Aside from who is and isn’t at University Stadium, the Lobos still rank dead last in points allowed, and the Aztecs are superior on the defensive side of the ball.
SDSU is 19th (out of 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams) in the country in points allowed, giving up just17.3 per game. The Aztecs shut down high-powered Air Force on Saturday in San Diego. The Aztecs upset the No. 23 Falcons 27-25.
SDSU Brady Hoke said his defense changed its schemes to defend Air Force’s triple-option attack.
“We wanted to have the ability to give a little bit of a different look than we did (against Air Force) last year,” Hoke said in a teleconference. “Also you have to — within the game plan itself — we wanted to get the fullback out of the equation.”
The Aztecs’ last four visits to University Stadium have been unsuccessful, all resulting in double-digit losses and all at the hands of a Long-coached teams.
Even with a week off and having not given NMSU an offensive touchdown two weeks ago, the Lobos are ranked 120th defensively. They are giving up an average of 46.5 points per game.
“On the defensive side of the ball, we have given up way too many big plays,” Locksley said. “We’ve (given up) about 1,200 yards in the first six games against, and about half that yardage has come on 36 plays. So that tells you that we’re giving up quite a few big plays on the run game. And it doesn’t get any better in the passing game.”
Locksley said hopefully there will be drastic improvement against the Aztecs.
“It’s just a matter of having our guys taking and executing their assignments, which I look forward to getting corrected here in the second half (of the season),” he said.
