After recording two wins against teams that are still winless, the Lobos had their momentum stopped in Reno, losing to the Wolfpack in a disappointing game. They have a great chance of recovering some of that momentum this weekend, though, when a struggling Hawaii team comes to town. And they will need to if they want to still have a shot at a bowl game. It’s the homecoming game this weekend, so here’s to hoping that the team puts on a good performance for the alums.
So who are we playing?
The Hawaii Rainbow Warriors are sort of the forgotten member of the Mountain West, in large part because they only compete in the conference in football but also because they haven’t really been memorable at that since they’ve joined. In their first three MW seasons, the best that they have finished in conference play was 3-5 and their best season record was 4-9, both marks coming last year. This is a far cry from what the conference was hoping for when they invited Hawaii to join, which was the program that made seven bowl games in nine seasons from 2002 to 2010 (and, possibly, a nice place to go play a game every once in a while). A big part of their downfall has been their program’s budget struggles, which not only has caused the team to skimp on hiring coaches, it has raised the issue as to whether or not the program will even continue to exist.
But exist it still does, and the ‘Bows come into Albuquerque on Saturday with a 2-4 record. It’s hard to know what to make of that record so far, given how tough of a schedule they’ve played. They opened their season with an upset victory of Colorado, but then faced three top-25 teams in OSU, Wisconsin, and Boise State and got shut out in all three games. Last week, they played a mediocre San Diego State team at home and lost 28-14, making the Colorado win look more and more like a fluke. Fourth-year coach Norm Chow, who is probably best known for his stints as the offensive coordinator for USC, UCLA, and the Tennessee Titans, really needs the team to turn its season around, otherwise he might be forced out before their final game.
The main issue with Hawaii has been their offense, which went from bad last year to worse this year. Hawaii runs a pro-style offense with a pretty even balance between the run and the pass, an offense that needs both aspects to be performing to be effective. That doesn’t seem to really be the case for them, though, as neither the passing nor the rushing have been very good. The passing game starts with QB Max Wittek, a fifth-year graduate transfer from USC, who has struggled so far this season. He has only a 44.9% completion rate, 5.5 yards per attempt, and a 5:8 TD to INT ratio. He does have a couple of big targets in Quinton Pedroza and Marcus Kemp, so I would expect Wittek to target those guys regularly on Saturday. Hawaii does seem to try to take regular shots downfield, with Wittek averaging 12.3 yards per completion, so the Lobo defensive backs should see plenty of action.
Their rushing game primarily revolves around Paul Harris, although he has only topped 70 yards in one game, and that was to FCS UC-Davis. Wittek, unlike a lot of other college QB’s, isn’t much of a threat to run, so the majority of the ‘Bows rushing attempts are going to come from the running backs. As a team, they only average 87.2 yards per game on the ground, so if there is any game for the Lobos to shut down another team on the ground, it’s this one.
On defense, Hawaii is led by linebacker Jerrol Garcia-Williams, who is leading the team in tackles after missing all of last season with a torn ACL. As a team, Hawaii hasn’t been great at forcing turnovers, with only five takeaways on the season, or at getting to the quarterback, with only eight sacks. I do think that the Lobos will need to be a little less predictable in their play-calling on offense, but if they do I think that they should have some success on Saturday.
Team Comparison
Thankfully, this is the last week before the OFEI and DFEI ratings start to be updated after each week, which will give us a much better idea of where both UNM and their opponents rank in terms of offensive and defensive efficiency. But, that means that for one more week we’ll just look back to where the teams stood last year. In the chart below, which shows the same offensive and defensive FEI data from our season preview, we can see how both UNM and Hawaii performed last year.
Last year, Hawaii was slightly below average defensively (83rd overall) and well below average offensively. That makes me feel as though they were a little lucky to get to 4-9 last season. They lost a decent amount of starters on both offense and defense, so it might be unsurprising that by most indications, they have slipped a little on both sides of the ball.
As we have been doing recently, we’ll be comparing the production of each team by yards per attempt. The first two plots show the breakdowns of yards gained by both teams and the yards allowed by both teams. In the first plot, we can get a sense as to how much Hawaii has been struggling on offense thus far. In fact, their 4.3 yards per play ranks them 126th out of 128 FBS teams. They’ve been particularly ineffective on the ground, averaging only 87.2 yards per game on 29.3 attempts. In the second plot, we see the defensive comparison of the two teams and note that they have been very similar. Hawaii likely has an advantage here, as not only are their rate stats a little better, their schedule has been considerably tougher than New Mexico’s.
In the following plot, we see the difference between the teams’ points scored and points allowed. As we can see, UNM is still running a positive point differential, outscoring their opponents by 4 points per game. Of course, if we take out the MVSU game, the Lobos have been outscored by about 7 points per game. Hawaii, on the other hand, has been outscored by their opponents by an average of 17.9 points per game. Again, a large part of that has been their tough schedule, but that certainly doesn’t completely explain it.
What’s going on at Quarterback? (Week 7 Edition)
Everyone’s favorite (?) series makes its triumphant return this week after watching Lamar Jordan get benched in favor of Austin Apodaca last week! Davie has been somewhat non-committal about the position this week, stating that Jordan is still the starting quarterback but that Apodaca might still see some action. So, what are we going to see this week? Honestly, because Hawaii is probably not as good of a team as Nevada, we might see Jordan play really well again, like in the Wyoming game, and re-solidify his claim on the position. That would certainly be my preference. However, if we don’t see that, then it might actually be a good idea to make a switch and see what Apodaca could do. I felt like last week Apodaca looked the most comfortable that we’ve seen him all season, which was one of my main concerns with him earlier. If he’s actually worked through the nerves, maybe he can run the offense effectively. That said, I don’t think he made any throws that Jordan is incapable of throwing, so if anything, his performance last week made me think that more of those types of passes should be called regardless of who is lining up behind center.
A Good Opportunity for the Defense?
The defense has been a mixed bag as of late, occasionally making huge stops in key situations and occasionally allowing teams to simply hand the ball off up the middle to gain chunks of yards. It seems like other teams have figured out a couple of ways to attack the Lobos, namely with those runs up the middle and with big receivers, so the coaching staff really needs to figure out what adjustments to make so teams can’t keep taking advantage in those ways. Luckily, they’re facing an offense that has really been struggling this season, so this gives them a good chance to fix some things and perhaps build up some confidence. A key part of that will be the play of Dakota Cox and Kimmie Carson, who had pretty quiet games last week and are too important to the defense for that to happen. They should get back on track this week, let’s hope they will.
Depleted Secondary
On Wednesday, Coach Davie announced that Isaiah Brown and Markel Byrd have been suspended for this weekend’s game for class attendance issues. This is a blow to the UNM defense, as both Brown and Byrd have been starters and, particularly in Byrd’s case, have been playing well. It’s certainly unfortunate for the team, but kudos to Davie for sticking to his guns on this. Hopefully this will get straightened out and they’ll be back for the San Jose State game. Until then, this should give some of the other guys the opportunity to prove to the coaches that they deserve some more playing time and I’m sure that Hawaii will look to test them throughout the game, giving them plenty of chances to make plays.
Prediction
The line for this game has UNM by 5.5, which I feel is a little low. So, I’ll pick UNM to end up with a 30-21 victory.
Game Info
What: The University of New Mexico (3-3) vs. The University of Hawaii (2-4)
Where: University Stadium, Albuquerque, NM
When: Saturday, October 17 at 5pm MT
Where to Watch: Root Sports
How to Listen: 770 KKOB