New Mexico’s goal of winning a division title took a serious hit Friday night, as the Lobos lost its first conference game after getting dominated 49-21 by No. 19 Boise State.
The Lobos looked like they might be able to hang around early in the game, playing to a 7-7 tie after the first couple of series, but then Boise State started to assert itself.
Both teams were somewhat one-dimensional, but the Broncos could not be stopped in the passing game, while the Lobos were never able to challenge despite strong numbers in the run game.
New Mexico played the game without Teriyon Gipson, who suffered a hamstring injury in last week’s 48-41 victory over San José State. Davie said the running back wanted to go, but the team decided to play it safe.
The Lobos seemed to miss Gipson’s big play ability as well as his over 12-yards-per-carry average.
Prior to the game, head coach Bob Davie said if the team got into a situation where it had to throw the ball out of necessity rather than choice, it would not bode well.
Boise State scored seven consecutive touchdowns, torching the Lobo secondary with big pass after big pass. New Mexico was unable to keep pace, and the game quickly got out of hand.
The Lobos trailed 42-7 at the half, and finally put up two late scores to stop the onslaught.
Davie said he was proud of his team for continuing to fight. He said it’s not easy to come back out after a first half like that, but for what it was worth he was glad to see the team outscore Boise State in the second half.
Quarterback Lamar Jordan had a tough day and was under duress for much of the game. Boise State applied constant pressure and appeared to rattle the quarterback and force some bad decisions.
“I was just rushing a lot of things,” Jordan said. “Just not playing my game, you know, trying to do too much.”
Davie said the team wasn’t able to protect Jordan and the inability to pass the ball took away the threat of play action. He said Jordan fought hard throughout the game.
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Many of Jordan’s mistakes did not necessarily hurt the team. An illegal forward pass by the QB negated a play that was ruled a fumble, and an interception at the end of the half proved to be relatively harmless.
While Jordan did go for over 100 yards rushing on the game, he completed only four passes for 39 yards. He missed a couple of wide open looks early on that could have kept the team in striking distance.
The Lobo offense covered 382 yards rushing in the game, and did arguably its best job of the season in terms of controlling field position. The team only had two 3-and-outs and picked up 23 first downs, converting nine times on third and fourth down.
While the offense showed improvement in its ability to sustain drives, the defense did not take advantage of the help.
Isaiah “I.B.” Brown suffered an apparent leg injury early in the game, and a thin secondary continued to let Bronco receivers Cedrick Wilson and Thomas Sperbeck run wild. Both of them had touchdown grabs of over 50 yards.
Wilson and Sperbeck receivers caught nine balls, with Wilson picking up 167 yards and three touchdowns and Sperbeck finding the end zone twice on 198 yards receiving.
New Mexico’s JaJuan Lawson notched his first career touchdown in the fourth quarter, while Richard McQuarley had a season-high four-game touchdown streak come to an end.
After keeping penalties to a minimum, the Lobos have seen the flags increase the last couple of weeks. The team committed a season high 12 penalties for 88 yards against Boise State.
Davie said the penalties are a major concern for the team, especially the defensive ones. The issue should be easily correctable and he said he hopes they will be able to execute better next week.
The head coach said the team hopes to have Gipson and cornerback Jadon Boatright back in the lineup when it faces Air Force Saturday in Texas in the Cotton Bowl. Austin Apodaca is also trending toward being available as he continues to recover from a shoulder injury he suffered several weeks ago.
Robert Maler is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers cross country, football, tennis and track and field. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @robert_maler.
