New Mexico Lobos vs New Mexico State Aggies Football Recap

New Mexico State 42, New Mexico 28

A bad week in the life of the New Mexico Lobo football program just got a lot worse. As though the embarrassing termination of its head coach wasn’t enough, Los Lobos will now spend the next 12 months living in the shadow of their not-so-distinguished archrival. Yes, the New Mexico State Aggies are hardly a top-tier football program, but they’re better than the University of New Mexico at this point in time.

New Mexico State traveled to Albuquerque and took full advantage of its rival’s rough-week hangover. After losing at home to Sam Houston State and firing coach Mike Locksley amidst more humiliating scandals, New Mexico dropped another home game, this time to the rival Aggies on Saturday night in the Land of Enchantment. New Mexico State has lost at home to a bad UTEP team this season, and the Aggies also lost to an even worse San Jose State ballclub by 10 points on Sept. 24. However, against New Mexico, NMSU found a get-well tonic.

Yes, that’s how bad things are for Los Lobos at the present moment.

New Mexico State put the game away early, starting with a quick, discouraging score to put the Lobos down. The Aggies returned the opening kick across midfield, and returner Austin Franklin was hit late out of bounds to add 15 more yards to the play. Just two plays later, Todd Lee hauled in a 22-yard touchdown pass from Matt Christian, and just 44 seconds into the game NMSU held a 7-0 lead. After forcing New Mexico to punt, the Aggies moved quickly again. After moving the ball to midfield from the shadows of the goalposts, Christian hit Franklin for a 50-yard touchdown pass, and it was 14-0 just midway through the first quarter. Christian threw his third touchdown of the quarter six minutes later on a 25-yarder to Kemonte Bateman. At 21-0, the game was already all-but-over.

After New Mexico State extended its lead to 35-7 in the third quarter, New Mexico would score 21 points in the final 17 minutes of the game to make it a somewhat-less-embarrassing 42-48 final tally. Christian was the star for the Aggies, going 16-27 for 296 yards and four touchdowns through the air, while adding 101 yards and another touchdown on the ground. Kenny Turner also broke 100 yards on the ground for the Aggies with 109. B.R. Holbrook was 22-36 for 265 yards and one touchdown for New Mexico in the loss. At 0-5, the Lobos have a bye week before trying to pick up their first win on the road at Nevada in two weeks.

> Find a great selection of New Mexico Lobos apparel & merchandise online as well as the MWC Football Scoreboard!

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer