Confidence gone from fading offense
Lobos have strayed from successful running game, can’t get results with poor offensive line
ALBUQUERQUE — If Bob Davie has been anything since he arrived at The University of New Mexico six years ago, it’s been consistent.
He showed up committed to rebuilding a broken program by installing the triple option and establishing an identity to Lobo football that was unique among college programs from coast to coast.
With the passing game and high percentage throws all the rage, he went old school and made the Lobos unlike any other team out there. Despite the many early stumbles, he stuck to his plans and built UNM into a respectable program that made consecutive bowl appearances.
Finally, it seems, he’s scribbling a few side notes into the margins of his run-heavy playbook. It’s not because he necessarily wants to, either.
Decimated by injury along the offensive line, UNM (3-5 overall, 1-4, last place in the Mountain West’s Mountain Division) has gone from the country’s top rushing team to one that no longer has the personnel to impose its will by keeping it on the ground.
The Lobos passed the ball just 20 percent of the time en route to last season’s nine-win campaign. This year they’re throwing it about 30 percent of the time while gaining 1.2 fewer yards per rushing attempt.
“Right now we’re really not wired that way, to maybe go win a game that way against a good team,” Davie said during his weekly media luncheon Tuesday in Dreamstyle Stadium.
It’s a sudden and, frankly, unexpected turn of events for a team that now must win three of its final four games just to get bowl eligibility. It has the coaching staff struggling to find answers.
“We’ve not developed on offense like we normally have each year,” Davie said.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Davie was saying that this team, top to bottom, was the most talented he’s had since he took over
at UNM. He said he still feels that way about the defense, kicker and punter. The offense? Not so much. “I think with what has kind of not evolved on the offensive line and at tight end, I’d have a hard time saying that right now about that offensive line and tight end position,” he said.
The personnel in place at the start of the season gave him hope that things would be just right. It wasn’t long after that things started falling apart and UNM’s glaring lack of quality depth began to show itself. Davie was forced to move defensive lineman Teton Saltes from defense to offense and slide Chris Estrella from guard to tackle.
Both got hurt, creating a landslide of activity up and down the line.
“And then what happens is you try to tweak, you try to not change your identity but change, kind of, the way you do things a little bit,” Davie said. “Then all of a sudden you look up and it’s like, ‘Oh man, who are we? What are we?’ And that’s kind of what this has been. It’s been a tough year, a tough year at the offensive line position.”
The ‘who are we’ is a team on the verge of a losing season a year after tying for the Mountain Division title. The ‘what’ is a club that has strayed from its identity of running the ball with confidence and conviction.
Quarterbacks Tevaka Tuioti, Lamar Jordan and Coltin Gerhart have combined to throw 131 passes in eight games, a 25 percent increase in attempts over last season.
Davie said he will likely have Jordan start Saturday’s game against Utah State, but it’s a certainty that both he and Tuioti, a freshman and the future face of the program, will get playing time.
Gone are the days where the Lobos would stick to the running game regardless of personnel. Truth is, they don’t have any choice but to throw it, because deficits like those in recent road games against Fresno State and Wyoming — where they’ve been outscored a combined 80-3 — dictate a different approach.
“Each and every situation is a little bit different and each team is a little bit different, so you try to tweak and you try to fix things,” Davie said. “Sometimes you fix those things and all of a sudden is you create more problems.”