The UNM football team has two home games left and maybe one last chance to avoid a looming possibility: an 0-12 season.
The Lobos host Wyoming on Saturday at University Stadium, before heading to Air Force and BYU and returning home to host national powerhouse TCU at the season finale.
Head coach Mike Locksley said UNM’s winless streak is a result of inconsistency.
“It’s tough to deal with,” he said. “But it’s definitely, in my experience, a byproduct of an inexperienced team…As a coaching staff, we have to find a way to get our players to play at a consistent level.”
If anything has been consistent this year, it’s been UNM’s quarterback shuffle.
After missing action for five weeks, B.R. Holbrook played against San Diego, but was knocked out in the third quarter. Last week Holbrook aggravated his shoulder in the first quarter and sat the rest of the game. He had an MRI, but it didn’t reveal structural damage.
“(The doctors) are calling it a badly bruised tricep,” Locksley said. “Unfortunately the tricep plays a major role in throwing the football, but B.R. will do anything he can to play.”
If he can’t go, that leaves the reins to either freshman quarterback Tarean Austin or Stump Godfrey, who took over for Holbrook against the Rams.
Brad Gruner is unavailable because he sliced his hand while carving a pumpkin leading up to last week’s game. He will have season-ending surgery on his hand.
Without Holbrook, UNM was unable to sustain any traction, and in Fort Collins, Colo., two-win Colorado State beat the Lobos 38-14. There, the Lobos surrendered 584 offensive yards and gave up 328 rushing yards.
Locksley said UNM’s run defense was full of holes, even though it previously did a good job stopping other teams’ ground attack.
“I thought we were making progress after the San Diego State game,” Locksley said. “One of the things that I thought we could say we’ve done well here if we can say we did anything well this season it was on the defensive side of the ball and stopping the run. I thought we did that well the last three games, up until Colorado State.”
Good thing, then, that the Cowboys have struggled to run the ball this season. They are 116th out of 120 Football Sub Division teams, averaging just 77.4 rushing yards per game. Last week Wyoming fell to SDSU 48-38 at home.
Wyoming head coach Dave Christensen said his team put up nearly 40 points on the scoreboard, yet walked away with a loss. But he said during the weekly Mountain West Conference teleconference that Wyoming can still finish on a high note, starting with the Lobos.
“They’re huge (games),” Christensen said. “But as I told the team, next season started (on Monday).”
Speaking of big games, Locksley said the Lobos are running out of opportunities to get their first win.
“This is definitely an important week for us as a football program,” Locksley said. “We need to find a way to get a win. Our goal this week, like it is every week, is to go out, prepare, play with great effort and find a way to get a W on Saturday — which is something that we obviously haven’t been able to do.”
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