FRESH START?
UNM’s Bob Davie, embattled in the offseason, leads Lobos into 2018 opener tonight
A USA Today report recently came out regarding college football coaches who are on the hot seat. Bob Davie, who begins his seventh season with New Mexico tonight vs. Incarnate Word, was among the group.
Davie, who endured a tumultuous offseason after a 3-9 regular season, said he doesn’t put a lot of credibility into those type of lists. And athletic director Eddie Nuñez wasn’t available for an interview to comment for this story or if this is a make-orbreak type year for Davie, UNM said.
But the 63-year-old Davie, with four years remaining on his contract, won’t deny that the upcoming season is a crucial one.
“In this profession you don’t always get to pick and choose (for how long you want to coach),” Davie said recently. “Sometimes others make that decision for you . ... This is a crucial year for our athletic department. This is a crucial year for everybody. Without a doubt. We went 3-9 last year.”
Davie was head coach at Notre Dame for five seasons after he had been an assistant at various programs for 18 years.
He left the Fighting Irish to work for ESPN for 10 years. He said that decade helped him as a break for his grind as a coach, is eager for this season to begin —even with a team picked to finish last in the Mountain West Conference’s Mountain Division — and he feels he can keep coaching.
The schedule begins today with a lower-level program, but it includes two teams ranked for now — at No. 4 Wisconsin, Sept. 8; and hosting. No. 22 Boise State, Nov. 16.
Incarnate Word, a Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) program,
went 1-10 a year ago and comes to town under a new coach, Eric Morris.
After his own program’s disappointing 2017 campaign, Davie went through a type of season that made him ask, “Did that really just happen?”
It did, as did an offseason just as bad as the season itself. Davie waited out two in-house investigations that resulted in him serving a 30-day suspension for accusations primarily of racially insensitive conduct and inappropriate action regarding a sexual assault accusation for one of his players.
As if the other troubles weren’t enough, Davie presides over a program that has been a financial drain, and UNM earlier this week even said that its season ticket sales were down from the modest figure of this time a year ago. So it has been the scapegoat for the overall woes of the UNM athletic department, which earlier in the month chose to cut four sports with the approval of the Board of Regents effective 2019-20. Davie at one point this summer suggested that he wasn’t sure football was safe from the ax.
In addition to that, Davie said goodbye to his father, Bob Sr., who died in April at 94. They drank a beer together the day before the older Davie passed away.
Losing his father was difficult for the Lobos coach, but he was grateful he was with him.
“Never graduated from high school,” Davie said recently at his office, which overlooks the football field at Dreamstyle Stadium. “Served in World War II, won a Bronze Star Medal, came home and worked in the steel mill for 40 years. Doing the right thing and representing the family name was always stressed. He had a heck of a run.”
Support from his family, Davie insists, has helped in tough times.
“People have been through a heck of a lot worse,” Davie said. “I celebrated my 40th wedding anniversary this summer (with wife Joanne). My daughter is an attorney and lives here in town with our grandson, and her husband (Brian De™Spain, assistant AD for football operations) and my son (Clay, tight ends coach) are on the coaching staff. I don’t have it all that bad. I keep it all in perspective.
“But with that said, it was a confusing time, a frustrating time. I’m never going to agree with the suspension. I’m never going to agree that the process was handled correctly. But I accept the decision and I’m moving forward with it.”