Rio Grande Rivalry War: What Are the Aggies Good For? New Mexico Football Will Find Out
“We’ve got to make sure we’re not wasting our focus, wasting our emotional energy on something that’s happening behind us in the stands... We’ve got to keep everything going forward.”
Whaddya know? The Aggies just might be good for something, after all.
Nothing can snap a football team back from what might have been like a rivalry game.
The University of New Mexico football team is quickly putting away its woulda-shoulda-coulda mentality against Oklahoma to focus on the Rio Grande Rivalry/Battle for I-25 with its trip to Las Cruces on Saturday to face the New Mexico State Aggies.
The Lobos (2-1) are a 13.5-point favorite over the Aggies (1-2) who return from a bye after a 29-19 loss at Hawaii.
The rivalry game is believed to be the first one televised nationally – on CBS Sports Network.
While NMSU has a decent 34-17 loss at Power Four school Florida State in its season opener – the Lobos actually are looking to bounce back from a disappointing 14-6 loss at Oklahoma – a game that knocked the Sooners out of the Top 25 despite the win.
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UNM won the turnover battle 3-0 and had the ball in OU territory on eight different possessions but came away with only six points.
Lobo coach Jason Eck credited a Sooners defense he says will be the best unit his team faces all year.
But it also exposed UNM’s inexperience at quarterback – something the team needs to address if it wants to reach double-digits wins for the first time in 44 years and the second time ever.
“We’ve got to keep getting our quarterbacks better and developing them,” Eck said during his weekly news conference Monday. “We’re making a few tweaks to practice that I think will help with our development of quarterbacks, just trying to execute better. Make sure we’re getting better looks from our scout team, stuff that we can control as coaches that we got to keep speeding their development.”
Toa Fa’avae grabbed the reins of the position away from Luke Moga in the second half at Oklahoma with his ability to make plays with his feet.
If that gave Fa’avae a … leg up, Eck would neither confirm nor deny a pecking order at the position.
“I think the rep count got a little skewed last week just because of the game it was,” Eck said. “Toa really did a tremendous job making plays out of nothing with his feet because we were struggling on offense. That’s what led to him playing a little bit more.
“Next week – I don’t always expect that we’re going to have a situation … I think we’ll be able to protect better going forward with the rest of the teams that we play.”
Fa’avae is the third leading rusher on the team. Moga has been the more accurate passer, completing 61.8% of his passes (21 of 34). Fa’avae is struggling at 40.7% (11 of 27).
Saturday’s game represents the final dress rehearsal before the start of Mountain West play, and UNM must improve at the position if it wants to win an outright conference championship for the first time since 1962.
NMSU’s defense surrenders a respectable 358.7 yards per game. More importantly, the Aggies have a No. 1 quarterback in Trey Hedden, who is averaging 260.3 passing yards per game.
Eck noted the Aggies played harder live last year during UNM’s 38-20 victory at University Stadium than they looked on video leading up to that game. State led the game 17-7 early in the second quarter
And while UNM has experience playing in front of 80,000 people, the game in Las Cruces poses a different road test because it is sure to include some colorful chatter from the NMSU fans as part of the rivalry.
“We’ve got to make sure we’re not wasting our focus, wasting our emotional energy on something that’s happening behind us in the stands” Eck said. “We’ve got to keep everything going forward.”
Eck said UNM had little to lose last week at Oklahoma because a loss wouldn’t derail the Lobos’ goals for the 2026 season.
UNM can’t afford a loss to NMSU if it wants to keep everything going forward.
A setback Saturday would confirm in the minds of Lobos fans that the Aggies are good for nothing.
The Pit Press staff predictions ahead of the New Mexico and New Mexico State on Saturday 9/26 in Las Cruces, NM.