With a little over two minutes left in Saturday’s game, Hawaii lined up for a 22 yard field goal that would have put them up by nine against the Lobos, effectively ending the game and any hopes the Lobos had at a bowl game. I would be lying if I said I had much confidence at that point. In fact, I was already starting to formulate this post in my mind, thinking that it would basically be a eulogy for the team’s season. Instead, Hawaii’s kicker hooked the attempt to the left and the Lobos were back from the dead.

I also can’t say that I was happy to see Austin Apodaca (or as the commentators kept saying, Apadaca) heading out to lead the two-minute drill. It’s really not that I don’t think he is capable, it’s mostly because I don’t like putting a guy who has been on the sidelines for the entire time in for the biggest drive of the game. So what does he do? He comes in and looks as sharp and comfortable as we’ve seen him all season. Unlike last week, where the majority of his passes were short, Apodaca mixing in some shots downfield, including the 28 yard touchdown pass to Dameon Gamblin. On that play, Apodaca pumped left to Carlos Wiggins then found Gamblin up the middle, who had created some space with a nice double move, with maybe the nicest pass and catch we’ve seen from the Lobos in a while. The touchdown put the Lobos up by one and Lee Crosby’s second interception of the day sealed the victory for New Mexico.

But, as mentioned, this game very easily could have, and maybe should have, had an entirely different ending and feeling. The Lobos didn’t look good in the first half, particularly on defense. They allowed a team who had been scuffling on offense for most of the season to march down the field with relative ease to score 24 points in the half. That’s 24 more points than they had scored on the road all season. Now, it was unreasonable to think that Hawaii was going to be shut out by UNM the same way they were against OSU, Wisconsin, and Boise State, but 24 points might have been a reasonable amount for us to expect Hawaii to score all game. A big part of that, in my mind, was because of the defensive backs who were missing due to suspension. Hawaii made an effort to pick on the replacements and it appeared at times that the replacements weren’t sure where they were supposed to be on coverage. The touchdown pass right before the end of the half especially comes to mind.

On offense, the Lobos seemed to be moving the ball well, but turnovers left them with only one successful drive. The killer turnover took place when the Lobos had the ball at Hawaii’s one yard line, when Lamar Jordan mishandled the ball on a read-option and a Hawaii defensive lineman jumped on top of the ball. When Hawaii was getting ready for that missed field goal at the end of the game, I couldn’t help but think how the game could have felt different if the team had even kicked a field goal on that drive. Thankfully it ultimately didn’t matter.

Like the NMSU game, where the Lobos also had a disastrous first half, the Lobos came out in the second half and dominated the Rainbow Warriors. The defense ended up with two interceptions in the half, both by Crosby, and only allowed Hawaii to score 3 points. I don’t really know why the defense has been making a habit of being a second-half squad because it doesn’t look like they are doing much different half to half. In this case, maybe it was because they were missing a couple of players and needed time to jell, but I keep thinking that if they can put two of those halves together, they might steal a game from a team that is expected to run all over them. The offense actually did kind of struggle for most of the second half (which might explain why Apodaca was told he was going into the game with about seven minutes left), but that last drive certainly atoned for those struggles.

As mentioned in our most recent Quest for a Bowl Game post, this win was necessary if the Lobos still wanted to have a reasonable shot of becoming bowl eligible. Because of an unlikely series of events, that dream is still alive and it seems as though more fans than ever are joining in on that dream. Next week the team goes to the Bay Area to play San Jose State in hopes of picking up their fifth win on the season. Let’s hope they can take this momentum on the trip with them.