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The New Mexico football team survived its road contest at Pittsburgh, but only after playing one of its worst halves of football this season.
At halftime of Saturday’s game, the Lobos were down 35-6 and were manhandled on both sides of the ball. The Panthers went on to win 49-27 after a spirited second-half effort from the Lobos.
“I think we all saw, you know, we got hit in the mouth right off the back … We were just tentative early and little wobbly,” said Lobo head coach Bob Davie. “I’m not discouraged at all. We’re so young and we’re not very big, but if there’s any encouragement, I didn’t see anybody run after we got punched in the mouth.”
Pitt (1-1) bulldozed UNM (1-2) in the first half, scoring on five of its first seven possessions. In the first two quarters, the Panthers gained 388 total yards of offense on 31 plays, compared to the Lobos who mustered 59 yards on 30 plays. After the first quarter, UNM had -8 yards of offense.
“We couldn’t really stop them. We never felt that we could honestly stop them,” Davie said. “You saw a lot of missed tackles where big receivers and big backs spun out of there and we couldn’t get them down.”
The game started off well for the Lobos, when on the first play from scrimmage safety Dante Caro intercepted Pitt quarterback Tom Savage, returning it to the Panthers’ 29-yard line.
But the Lobos’ offense went nowhere, leading to a Justus Adams field goal, which he missed wide left of the post.
On the Panthers’ second possession, they marched right down the field and scored when Savage completed a 4-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Scott Orndoff for a 7-0 lead.
After UNM scored a field goal on its next drive, Pitt answered with a six-play, 75-yard drive that was capped by running back Tyler Boyd’s 33-yard touchdown run to put the Panthers up 14-3.
UNM’s third drive of the game ran three plays for -2 yards. Pitt then took over at its 40-yard line and went right down the field for another touchdown. This time running back James Conner punched it in from a yard out, giving the Panthers a 21-3 lead.
Starting UNM center Dillon Farrell didn’t play at Pitt due to a strained MCL suffered last week at UTEP. Davie said the offense wasn’t able to start out smoothly to start the game.
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“The center was a little shaky with LaMar (Bratton) in there and the snaps hurt us,” Davie said. “He was back on his heels. Their defensive linemen up inside were up on us and Lamar struggled with the snap and that got us off balance a little bit.”
At the start of the second quarter, the Lobos forced another turnover when Ben Skaer’s punt nipped a Panthers player on the return. Caro recovered the loose ball, setting up UNM at Pitt’s 38-yard line. UNM drove to Pitt’s 1-yard line but settled for a field goal to cut the deficit to 15.
The Panthers wasted no time and answered the Lobos in four plays when Conner broke several tackles for a 38-yard touchdown.
The teams then traded possessions and UNM was able to put together a solid drive that stalled at Pitt’s 37-yard line when quarterback Clayton Mitchem was sacked for a 7-yard loss on fourth-and-18.
With 23 seconds left in the half, Pitt added one last touchdown thanks to Todd Boyd’s 34-yard touchdown reception from Savage.
“I’m from right down the road and we got a lot of players from back east and when you’re in that situation it’s tough,” Davie said. “I thought the message at halftime was pretty simple … let’s go play every snap to go and develop our team.”
The second half witnessed a revived Lobo offense. UNM was able to move the ball effectively when sophomore quarterback Cole Gautsche was in the game. Gautsche capped both of New Mexico’s third-quarter touchdowns, but the team still trailed Pitt 42-20 at the end of the third.
Davie said playing the second half was about the future and not the final outcome of the game.
“I felt that way the most important thing was accomplished in that we’re pretty resilient,” Davie said. “It was about playing every play in the second half and not about the score. We were just playing it out in the second half.”
Offensively, Pitt outgained UNM 527 yards to 270. Pitt running backs Conner and Isaac Bennett both went over the century mark and combined for 220 yards on 26 carries with four touchdowns. Savage completed 13 of 17 passes for 236 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
Junior running back Crusoe Gongbay led the Lobos with 99 yards on 10 attempts for one touchdown. Senior running back Kasey Carrier, who entered the game as the nation’s leading rusher, couldn’t establish himself and ended up carrying the ball seven times for 25 yards.
Davie said despite the loss the team had many little victories against Pitt.
“As bad as it was, as much as I would like to come back to Pennsylvania and play decent defense, which we didn’t do, I leave here knowing that we got a chance to keep building through consistency and that we finished the game a little bit,” Davie said.
