Aggies give New Mexico rare moment of sports glory
No matter what color you bleed, be it the crimson of Aggie Land, the cherry and silver of the Lobos or any other hue that suits you, not even the coldest of hearts couldn’t help but grow just a tick or two after watching hundreds of New Mexico State fans rush the field the other night after the Arizona Bowl.
Who among you wouldn’t love to experience what Aggie fans did the moment Larry Rose III ran across the goal line from 21 yards out to cap NMSU’s first bowl appearance in 57 years with an overtime win over Utah State? To feel the swell of school spirit, knowing that at that exact moment the entire sports world was cheering right alongside you? Unbeatable.
How about you, Lobo fans? When was the last time a win spawned a rush of hundreds, inspiring them to jump over the railing and run onto the field to celebrate a 7-6 season in a bowl game no one really seemed to pay attention to until that exact moment?
Considering the road NMSU has taken to get here, how Aggie fans had to endure an eight-season stretch between 1984-91 in which their team won just 10 games and hadn’t won more than five times in any of the previous 14 years, the wait was worth it. So was the celebration.
In a time when college football seems to be more about money and power-brokering athletes to the NFL — not to mention a growing sense of apathy — Friday’s Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl offered a rare opportunity to all of us. It was a chance to savor what it’s like to actually celebrate an accomplishment that had nothing to do with national titles or padding bloated history books with just another postseason bid.
It gave this state’s overlooked school a chance to steal the spotlight and experience a feel-good moment, the kind that so many have forgotten.
For NMSU’s players, it was a job well done. They stuck around long enough to buy into head coach Doug Martin’s plan, long enough to ignore the jokes about Nowhere U and build something special, if only for a night.
Truth is, the future isn’t exactly bright for the Aggies. They’ve gotten kicked out of the Sun Belt and head into 2018 as a football independent that has to do quirky things just to play a full slate of games. Next season the Aggies will play a home-and-home with Liberty, a comical slap in the face for a program that deserves a conference membership and a reasonable shot at being in a more stable environment.
But that’s an argument for a different time and place. For now, with the year coming to an end and everyone getting nostalgic about the year that was and the one that will be, the focus for the moment is riding the high that NMSU’s football team provided before a national audience.
The trick now is not waiting another 57 years to see it happen again. The last time NMSU was in a bowl game, man hadn’t walked on the moon, the internet was not only not invented but the word didn’t actually exist yet, and Halley’s Comet was still 26 years away. If the Aggies don’t return to a bowl until 2074, humans might live on Mars, Scottie might be beaming objects from one planet to another and Halley will have come and gone 13 years previous.
In other words, savor it. In other words, let your blood run crimson, if only for a little while.