No voices of support for Davie
Lobos face Nevada as yet another lost season rolls on
With losses mounting and fan apathy at levels not seen in more than a quarter-century, it’s only natural that questions about job security and the end of an era surround the daily routine of University of New Mexico head football coach Bob Davie.
When asked about his status, everyone from UNM President Garnett Stokes to board of regents President Douglas Brown have deferred all questions to athletic director Eddie Nuñez. Fact is, Nuñez isn’t talking, either.
The boss of UNM athletics offered a pedestrian response two weeks ago, saying he’s tossing his full support behind the players and the team as it navigates its way through the back end of the 2019 schedule. Any questions about Davie’s job security or future with the university are not being discussed in public circles.
Fewer than 13,000 fans showed up for the homecoming game last weekend against Hawaii, a loss in which the Lobos trailed 35-3 at halftime. While Davie spoke afterward about his team’s ability to find a pulse after cutting it to a two-possession game, there’s no escaping the black cloud hovering over the coach’s status as the keeper of the football program.
At one point this week, he was asked what he thought his legacy would be as a coach and a broadcaster.
“Wow,” he said. “Worked at it, worked at it, worked at it. I think anyone who was around me in either of those two professions would say, ‘worked his butt off, worked his butt off.’ Put everything I had into it and did it for the right reasons. You know, never did it to try to make money. I never did it to try to get
the next job, the next bump. In fact, I probably stayed too long on jobs a couple [of] times.”
The Lobos (2-6 overall, 0-4 in the Mountain West) head back on the road Saturday night to visit Nevada (4-4, 1-3). The game kicks off at 8:32 p.m., thanks to the ESPNU broadcast, but UNM officials have been told it could get pushed back an additional 15 minutes if the game being aired before it runs long.
Regardless of what the TV audience sees, the simple fact is that the Lobos are struggling and the program is in the kind of prolonged funk not seen since attendance at home games dipped below 16,000 in five out of six seasons from 1986-91.
The only thing keeping the Lobos above that same figure is the New Mexico State game in September, a game that drew more than 27,000 people to raise the season average to 17,257 through four games. That’s slightly ahead of last year’s pace but on track for the school’s first back-to-back seasons of under 20,000 since 1990-92.
The Lobos had averaged at least 20,000 every season between 1993 and 2017, drawing at least 35,000 over a 17-game span between 2003 and 2005.
Toss in the fact that the Lobos have lost 24 of their last 32 games — including 18 of their last 20 in conference play — and it only compounds all the off-field issues that have fans calling for Davie’s head. He was suspended for a month last year for abusive behavior behind the scenes and just recently forced to suspend his starting quarterback for indecent exposure.
Then there are questions about his longterm health after his life-threatening medical incident following the season opener Aug. 31. He missed two weeks, spurring speculation that he might resign, citing health issues.
Davie is under contract through 2021. His base salary is $422,690.04, which is essentially doubled after incentives such as media responsibilities and marketing requirements are met. Should the school terminate his contract before the end of this season, the buyout for the remainder of his deal is three times his base pay, or about $1.27 million. That figure falls to $845,380 after the 2019 finale on Nov. 30 against Utah State.
Davie has been asked several times during the team’s current five-game losing streak whether he feels the walls closing in, if he feels any concern over his job status. He has responded multiple times that he understands he’s on the hot season and doesn’t fault anyone for putting him there given the team’s lack of success the last two-plus seasons.
Of course, it almost always leads back to the same thing: Davie wants to leave UNM on his terms, with the program in better shape than wen he found it in. Admittedly stubborn, he said he wants to bring back the consistency that led to the Lobos earning back-to-back bowl bids in 2015 and 2016.
And with that, UNM continues Davie’s quest with Saturday’s visit to Reno, Nev.