It’s two lasts for the UNM football team.
One: It’s the last road game of the season. Two: Saturday marks the last matchup with BYU while it’s still a Mountain West Conference member. The Cougars will play as a football independent next season.
Head coach Mike Locksley said he has strived to make UNM a BYU-type football program.
“It’s one of the teams that we’ve always looked to and gunned for to try to get to that point with our program,” Locksley said. “This being possibly the last meeting between the two teams as Mountain West Conference members, I don’t think it adds (to the game), other than that we are playing one of the better teams in our conference in the last 10 years.”
Two weeks removed from their only victory, the Lobos will once again be hard-pressed to stop the run this week. It’s a defensive problem that’s troubled them the last three weeks. UNM has given up a combined 1,093 yards.
Locksley said BYU will look to exploit that weakness.
“It’s a two-fold problem, and we have really struggled here the last three weeks,” he said. “But we’ve faced some of the best rushing teams in our conference, and this will be no different with the way BYU has run the ball the last few weeks.”
BYU’s 164-rushing-yard average fueled its recent run, after an un-Cougar-like start to the season.
The Cougars went 2-5 through seven games, but have broken back into the .500 club with three straight wins over MWC opponents.
BYU needs one more win to become bowl-eligible, and the Cougars looked the best they have all season during their last two games — a 55-7 win over UNLV and a 49-10 waxing over Colorado State.
Together, UNLV and Colorado State beat the Lobos by a combined score of 76-24.
BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall said his players are only concerned about earning a bowl bid.
“It really doesn’t matter who we’re playing right now,” he said. “We’ve had so much to do and so much to improve with so little time to get it done. That’s where our focus is right now, and that’s what this team has done very well this season.”
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Locksley said the Lobos have to shed blocks if they are going to stop the Cougars’ ground attack.
“We’ve got to do a better job playing with energy to get to the football with all 11 players defensively,” he said.
At least the past few weeks that energy has been omnipresent offensively, Locksley said, and freshman quarterback Stump Godfrey has taken care of the ball. He committed one turnover in two starts.
“Our team did a great job of securing the football here with a freshman quarterback,” Locksley said. “And I continue to see that development out of our offense.”
