Jones, Lobos embrace role as underdogs
UNLV is 11.5-point favorite over UNM in league opener
At the end of Tuesday’s practice, New Mexico football coach Bob Davie shouted three words as if to challenge the team huddled in front of him.
“We’re the underdog,” he shouted more than once.
Sheriron Jones knows what that means as UNM (2-2) prepares to face UNLV (2-2) on Saturday in Las Vegas, Nev. The Rebels opened as an 11½-point favorite against UNM.
“We gotta go out and prove a point,” said Jones, who is now the Lobos’ starting quarterback after Tevaka Tuioti suffered a broken clavicle during the 52-43 loss to Liberty on Saturday.
Jones, a 6-foot-3, 196-pound junior transfer who began his college career at Tennessee, said there is a greater sense of urgency because this is the Mountain West Conference opener.
Jones should know what being an underdog is all about. He entered the season as the No. 3 quarterback after he was dealt a setback with a hamstring injury that put him out for two weeks in August.
The Rebels, who are coming out of their bye week, also will have a different quarterback than
originally expected on Saturday. Max Gilliam, a 6-foot-3, 195-pound sophomore and a former Cal signee, will be UNLV’s starter. Armani Rogers is out for about six weeks after suffering a broken toe against Arkansas State on Sept. 22.
Jones will be making his second start of the season, but this one has a different dynamic. In his first start, he helped the Lobos to a 42-25 win at rival New Mexico State. But everyone knew Tuioti would be coming back. Now there will be no appearance of the redshirt sophomore dual threat QB. Tuioti underwent surgery on his left non-throwing shoulder on Monday and is out for the season.
Coltin Gerhart, the redshirt senior who began the season as the backup quarterback, is out for another three or four weeks after he sprained his foot in the season opener, Davie said.
During his weekly press conference Davie laughed in amazement of his quarterback situation: two scholarship quarterbacks remain, both who didn’t show up until the summer, one a junior college transfer (Jones) and the other a true freshman (Trae Hall).
Jones has thrown for a teamhigh 540 yards and six touchdowns on 37-of-65 passing.
Davie said Jones need to take better care of the ball. Jones has thrown six interceptions, three that came against Liberty.
The Lobos’ third-string quarterbacking job is up in the air —either redshirt senior wide receiver Patrick Reed, who came to UNM as a quarterback, or sophomore Bryson Carroll, who was originally a running back. Reed has 148 yards and two touchdowns on two catches, including a 79-yard TD reception against the Flames on Saturday.
Davie said that for now, the Lobos will be a spread team on offense and not use the triple option, as it had in the previous three games, and throughout Davie’s seven seasons at UNM.
Apollo Wright, Lobos’ quarterback coach, said Jones has responded well to taking on the starting spot and that he’s basically learning every play.
“The thing with the quarterback on any college team, it’s always important,” Wright said. “To me, and I’ve played the position, I know what it entails, you have to be the guy. It’s going to be on your shoulders. We need for him to be the guy.”
With the way UNM quarterbacks have been going down, Hall knows he needs to be ready. Wright expects Hall to be raw, and will need to rely on his talent to guide the Lobos if needed.
Wright said the Lobos recruited Hall out of Henderson High in Texas with the knowledge he would be capable of running the triple option. But Hall ran the same type of spread offense in high school that the Lobos are now using.