Ags Seek Top N.M. Kids, Too

At his news conference Tuesday, first-year UNM football coach Bob Davie said he initially had expected to find instances of several Lobos and Aggies from around here who had played against each other in high school.

“Not so much the case,” he said. “I look at their roster, I think they have one player on their two-deep from the state of New Mexico.”

Davie went on: “We have a significant number of guys — I think we have over 35 players on our roster from (New Mexico).”

The one Aggie would be Roswell’s Desmond Anaya, a backup defensive end featured in Rick Wright’s story today along with Anaya’s brother David, a UNM running back.

And, well, the Aggies might have had at least one more, were it not for the little matter of UNM successfully recruiting Cole Gautsche out of Cleveland High School — after Gautsche had committed to New Mexico State.

Davie and his staff did nothing wrong. Kids can be recruited in the umpteen windows of time the NCAA permits until the day they sign.

Many, Gautsche among them, commit too early. Why? Some are fickle

teenagers. Some college coaches suggest they’ll pull an offer if they don’t commit. As Gus Fring of “Breaking Bad” once said, chillingly, “There is blame on both sides.”

But again, not with Davie, who arrived in time to make a pitch to Gautsche that obviously appealed more than DeWayne Walker’s.

Davie’s statement about the number of New Mexican Lobos should cheer the locals. Especially those mourning the Mike Locksley regime, including its East Coast pipeline of “talent” that didn’t belong here.

Yet at the same time, Davie should take care not to turn this into a flagwaving moment. Not the way Rocky Long would have, anyway.

The opportunity to bring in local kids appeals to both UNM and NMSU for obvious reasons. It’s not a unique plank in one school’s athletic platform.

One is just more successful at it.

In his fourth year, Walker and his staff went after Gautsche, but also have pursued “pretty much every top prospect in New Mexico,” one NMSU official said Wednesday. That includes Dante Caro and Freddy Young, current members of the Lobos secondary.

If it didn’t hurt enough that both of them are from Las Cruces, Young came from Aggies stock — Young’s father, Fredd, was a standout Aggie defender who went on to play in the NFL.

Numerous New Mexicans who do end up playing for the Aggies have told stories about landing there only after the Lobos spurned them. Rio Rancho alum Chris Williams is the poster child of such, and it doesn’t take the historians to say Long blew it on that one. Rocky said so himself.

Any discussion of all-time best Aggies has to get to Williams pretty quickly, about as quick as is he. Any discussions of all-time best Aggies from New Mexico would say his name even faster. He wanted so badly to be a Lobo, and don’t think he or his family have gotten over it.

The Ags certainly tried with Brian Urlacher, whose only other majorcollege offer out of Lovington came from New Mexico. They tried with Landry Jones, Oklahoma QB.

Some, like Jones, are too big for the Land of Enchantment’s massive square mileage. Beyond those rare gems, among the general populace, there’s only one state football for which New Mexico’s kids really grow up wanting to play. You know who. You know why.

From a glass-half empty view, the Aggies already have less of everything — money, facilities, tradition, and now the Western Athletic Conference is in critical condition.

The Lobos may be 7-point underdogs Saturday, losers of three straight in the series and in Game 4 of a rebuilding year.

But the Aggies are in a rebuilding life, and life’s not getting any easier.