sports@dailylobo.com
The future for the UNM football team doesn’t look too good.
The team finished its first spring season under head coach Bob Davie last week, and it’s not surprising the team is in a tough situation.
The Lobos have only 77 players on the roster for spring practices, the lowest in the Mountain West Conference.
Three straight 1-11 seasons left UNM in such disarray that the it wasn’t able to play its an annual Cherry-Silver game because there weren’t enough players to field two teams.
In the past three years, the Lobos brought in 67 scholarship players, but only 34 remain with the team.
Davie has the right mentality, and his coaching style will eventually pay off in the next five years, but these first two years are going to be difficult, to say the least.
Right now, UNM has two quarterbacks on scholarship: senior B.R. Holbrook and freshman Cole Gautsche. Gautsche graduated early from Cleveland High School.
Holbrook is an injury-prone quarterback, and the team will be in trouble if the Lobos’ only experienced quarterback goes down next year.
Gautsche isn’t the only incoming freshman who could see some playing time next season.
UNM has two tight ends and will have just seven eligible offensive linemen next season.
Because of the small roster, Davie said few of the Lobos’ 24 incoming recruits will redshirt. The recruits won’t be afforded an extra year to adjust to the speed of the college game without losing a year of eligibility.
When Davie took over last November, he was tasked with stabilizing the country’s worst program.
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The job became more difficult after only one member of former head coach Mike Locksley’s recruiting class didn’t change his commitment.
Davie had to essentially throw together a recruiting class from nothing and brought in 24 players who were not highly touted by scouting services.
College football programs are allowed 85 scholarship athletes.
Davie predicts next year the team will have 75. To make matters worse, after the 2012 season, UNM will lose 23 seniors to graduation.
Luckily for Davie, Lobo fans have been accustomed to mediocrity for the past three seasons.
If Davie can win three games this season, he’ll be a hero, and if UNM has a winning record in the next few seasons, he will be a legend.
From what the players have said over the past month, Davie has changed the program’s culture and has done his best to get rid of the poor coaching that plagued UNM the past three seasons.
Davie is going to have his hands full the next few years, but he is passionate about Lobo football and is the right coach to take on the difficult job. It’s only a matter of time before he brings success back to University Stadium.
