Coach Davie shows Lobos their mistakes
UNM players were presented with TV broadcast of latest loss
Every week it seems, New Mexico football coach Bob Davie reminds his team about what it will put on film for future opponents to watch. It’s his way of telling the Lobos to make big plays. This week, there was more shame than game when looking at the video of UNM’s 38-7 loss to Fresno State last Saturday at Dreamstyle Stadium.
Davie actually showed his players highlights, or rather lowlights, of the TV broadcast for the Lobos’ game against the Bulldogs. He said it’s something that he never does.
The coach, in his seventh season with the Lobos, said he had his players view every emotional and meaningful play with the commentary from the TV broadcast and the replays.
Davie can be considered an expert when it comes to these types of things, as he worked for ESPN for nine years before coming to coach the Lobos.
He knew what to include so that his players could get an “outsider’s” perspective of what took place.
It was hard to miss nine penalties for 125 yards. Five of those penalties were extremely glaring as
those were flags for either personal fouls or unsportsmanlike conduct. Davie said that cannot happen again. The Lobos (3-4, 1-2 in Mountain West Confernce) must avoid penalties and unraveling when confronting adversity when they face Utah State (6-1, 3-0) Saturday in Logan, Utah.
“I think the message was well taken,” Davie said. “Because what we put on tape was not indicative of a well-coached team, of a disciplined team and certainly not a championship team particularly that was an underdog going into the game.”
Davie detailed some of the penalties and mistakes during his weekly press conference Tuesday. He did the same with the Lobos.
He asked them to decide if a penalty was a good call or a bad call. But more than that he wanted them to decide if they reacted appropriately to what happened. They didn’t. Speaking after the loss in the postgame presser on Saturday, Davie said the penalties and questionable calls caused frustration that led to embarrassment.
Because of the penalties, much of the Lobos’ chagrin came from the label of being a team that lacks discipline.
When ESPN play-by-play man Mike Couzens questioned why the Bulldogs would have quarterback Marcus McMaryion in so late in the game, analyst Kirk Morrison chimed in about why he feared for Fresno State’s signal-caller.
“Just the way (the game has) been, the undisciplined play we’ve seen from New Mexico, you don’t want to see a cheap shot to the quarterback,” Morrison said.
UNM’s big running back Zahneer Shuler was ejected from the game in the second quarter for targeting after he hit a defenseless Fresno State player on a blindside block during a reverse play to wide receiver Elijah Lilly.
Two of the Lobos’ unsportsmanlike penalties were for complaining to an official after a face-mask infraction was called and after a flag for defensive pass interference.
UNM junior QB Sheriron Jones was called for unsportsmanlike conduct when he emphatically threw the ball up in the air after running 15 yards for a first down.
Jones learned from that mistake, he said after Tuesday’s practice.
“That’s very unacceptable,” he said. “That’s not who I am. That’s not my personality. We did learn a lot from (the penalties) and we are holding each other accountable.”
The Lobos can’t afford those type of mistakes because their margin for error, with regard to the teams they face, is minimal, Davie added. UNM was a 13½-point underdog to Fresno State.
UNM, which has lost two straight, opened as a 20½-point underdog at Utah State and it moved up a half point on Tuesday. Davie also said that in actuality Fresno State was plainly a better football team than UNM and executed at a higher level.
UNM senior wide receiver Delane HartJohnson was called for offensive pass interference twice. He said the first one affected him a bit because it was called after a 43-yard catch that he believed would have given the Lobos momentum.
The mistakes masked the improvements the Lobos made, Davie said.
He said the UNM offensive line had perhaps its best game of the season, and progress was made from a physical standpoint.
“We had a lot of effort in that game,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of kids that really want to win. We’ve got a lot of personalities. Things happened that we didn’t respond well to, but at least it’s not a flat-line approach where guys just accept whatever happened.”