Overpowered
SEC’s Texas A&M tramples hapless Lobos
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — What price a thorough embarrassment on national television?
The New Mexico Lobos earned a cool $1.1 million for Saturday night’s game against the Texas A&M Aggies at mammoth Kyle Field.
Not so cool, from a UNM standpoint, was the 55-14 shellacking the Lobos absorbed in a game televised nationally on ESPNU.
The final score failed to accurately portray the depth and breadth of the rout. The Lobos trailed 48-7 at halftime. Texas A&M played mostly backups in the second half.
The Aggies, passing at will in the first half against a helpless UNM secondary, amassed 499 yards through the air in improving their record to 6-4 (3-3 in Southeastern Conference play).
“I think we all saw what it was,” UNM coach Bob Davie said. “We couldn’t really cover them, couldn’t tackle in space. It was eye-opening.”
The Lobos are 3-7 on the season, any hopes of a .500 season and a third consecutive bowl bid utterly shattered. Now they have a short week in which to recover from Saturday’s disaster and face UNLV
in a Mountain West Conference game at home on Friday.
Junior offensive guard Aaron Jenkins said he’ll have no problem refocusing for the season’s final two games against UNLV and at San Diego State.
“They’re very important to me,” he said. “I want those (seniors, fellow offensive linemen), Blaise Fountain and Avery Jordan, who I’ve been battling with for the last two years, to go out with a bang.”
The Lobos’ only bright spot during a miserable first half came when sophomore Elijah Lilly returned a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown late in the second quarter — trimming UNM’s halftime deficit to 41 points.
Last year as a freshman, Lilly averaged 27.4 yards per return and took a kickoff back 93 yards for a touchdown against Louisiana-Monroe.
This season, until Saturday, he was averaging only 20 yards with a long return of just 35 yards.
“It’s been real frustrating, because I expected to do way better than I did last year,” he said. “My expectations were pretty high. I was pretty down because I haven’t been able to do what I’m capable to do.”
Of the touchdown return, he said, “They kicked the ball to the right, so everyone was coming down hard on the right side. I just set it up, saw the hole and took it back to the left.”
Earlier in the half, an apparent Lilly TD return was wiped out when replays showed his knee had touched the turf at the UNM 39-yard line.
The Lobos finally put together a touchdown drive in the third quarter, traveling 80 yards on 14 plays with redshirt freshman quarterback Tevaka Tuioti, replacing senior starter Lamar Jordan, at the controls. But the Lobos managed just 144 yards total offense for the game.
“We had a hard time blocking them on offense,” Davie said.
The Lobos were 7-of-17 passing, but for only 24 yards.
“I feel like we kind of played on our heels the first half,” Jenkins said.
The Lobos passed up one possible first-quarter scoring opportunity.
After a 15-yard A&M pass interference penalty and a 14-yard Daryl Chestnut run put the ball on the A&M 29-yard line, consecutive plays lost a total of 6 yards. On a fourth-and-16 from the 35, UNM chose to punt rather than throw to the end zone.
Corey Bojorquez’s punt was downed on the 3-yard line, but the Aggies’ promptly drove 97 yards for a touchdown and a 20-0 lead.
Otherwise, the first half was the Nick Starkel show. The A&M redshirt freshman quarterback went to the locker room having thrown for an other-worldly total of 416 yards and four touchdowns.
As other teams have done this season, Fresno State in particular, the Aggies went after UNM’s safeties with a vengeance. The strategy produced seven completions of 20 yards or more in the first half.
Adding insult to insult, or injury to injury, A&M’s Christian Kirk took a 62-yard Bojorquez punt and returned it 90 yards for a touchdown.
Texas A&M had minimal success on the ground — 63 yards and a 2.7-yard average per carry— but didn’t need to. The UNM defense, solid against the run, could get no pressure on Starkel.
“We tried,” Davie said. “We just couldn’t get there.”