UNM football is home at last
After nomadic 2020 season, Lobos set to host Houston Baptist
The home debut for University of New Mexico football coach Danny Gonzales has finally arrived.
The coronavirus pandemic delayed it a year after the Lobos played all their games outside the state of New Mexico because of the state’s public health order.
The Lobos became the first Football Bowl Subdivision team to play all of its schedule out of state last year when they spent 43 days on the road — the majority of those days at a hotel in Henderson, Nevada.
Thursday night, against 19-point underdog Houston Baptist, and after 642 days, the Lobos will play their first home game.
“For me to be able to represent our team is really cool,” said Gonzales, a Valley High alumnus who grew up in Albuquerque and walked on as a player at UNM, where he also began his coaching career as a video assistant. “But it’s not about me. It’s about our football team. Those guys deserve the opportunity to play in front of a stadium that has a ton of people in it. They’ve been through a lot.”
UNM lost its first five games of last season, part of a 14-game losing streak and a 20-game Mountain West Conference skid, leading Gonzales at one point to describe his team as “terrible.”
The Lobos then won their final two games of the season, beating Wyoming and Fresno State, both at UNLV. Now they’re hoping to carry that momentum into the 2021 season.
They actually completed a traditional offseason this year, as opposed to 2020, when their spring football training was cut short. They’re expected to be much improved with a roster that features Kentucky transfer quarterback Terry Wilson and 14 “super seniors” who gained an extra year of eligibility due to the coronavirus-delayed and shortened season.
UNM senior safety Jerrick Reed, the Lobos’ lone preseason All-MWC pick who led the league with four interceptions, is among the leaders on a defense that includes key playmakers in senior linebacker Reco Hannah and senior defensive end Joey Noble.
Noble must sit out the first half after he was assessed a personalfoul penalty and ejected during the Lobos’ 2020 finale.
UNM’s season opener also marks the return of Rocky Long, the former Lobos’ head coach who is now the defensive coor
dinator under Gonzales for the second year.
GOING TO THE GAME: There were about 12,000 tickets sold through Wednesday for the season opener, UNM deputy athletic director Dave Williams said, 7,172 of which are season tickets. It is the first game that UNM is going exclusively with a fully digital system for tickets and parking. Some fans have already expressed hesitancy about the new system, but UNM insists it will assist them through the changes.
The game was originally scheduled to be played Saturday, but Gonzales was instrumental in moving the game to Thursday with the hope more people will show up before attending other activities during Labor Day Weekend.
Gonzales believes his program will eventually draw bigger crowds at University Stadium, but it might not be as easy for now.
“We’ve had a habit of losing around here that we need to change,” Gonzales said. “That habit is expected from the whole community. They expect us to lose. So why are they going to invest their money that they worked hard for to come and watch the same thing? But if they expect us to win then all of a sudden it’s a lot more value. Do I want them to be on board before we win? Of course I do because that will make (drawing consistently large crowds) easier and make it happen faster. But it’s going to happen either way.”