The Lobos had their season on the brink last weekend, but a remarkable comeback victory put the team at 4-3 on the season and 2-1 in conference play. Amazingly, there is a non-ridiculous series of events that could happen this weekend that could put the Lobos in a four-way tie for first place in the Mountain Division, but that will have to start with a Lobo win on the road against San Jose State.
So who are we playing?
San Jose State is coming off of a deflating game with San Diego State last week, in which the Spartans came in hoping to be in sole possession of first place in the West division and instead came out with a 30-7 loss. That loss dropped them to 3-4 overall and 2-2 in conference play. However, like New Mexico, the Spartans have yet to record a victory against anyone with more than one FBS victory, so their record isn’t exactly indicative of their ability. But still, they have their sights on winning their division and playing for the conference championship in November. The Mountain West is not good at football this year, you guys.
On offense, the Spartans are led by junior QB Kenny Potter, who, after a couple of games of rotating quarterbacks, won out against senior Joe Gray (last year’s starter). He then proceeded to injure his ankle and had to miss a couple of games, but he is back now. He has been pretty accurate with his passes this season, completing over 65% of his attempts, but has been prone to throwing the occasional interception. He is also fairly mobile, which is likely what put him over Gray, so the defense will need to be aware of that. He has quite a variety of targets at his disposal, with his main ones being 6’2” WR Tyler Winston, 6’3” TE Billy Freeman, 5’7” WR Tim Crawley, and 5’10 RB Tyler Ervin. Look for Potter to spread the ball around and not focus on any single receiver.
Tyler Ervin might be the biggest threat to the Lobo defense this Saturday, as not only has he been dangerous catching passes out of the backfield, he has been very effective rushing the ball. He already has 11 rushing touchdowns on the season, which puts him tied for sixth nationally, and a few weeks ago he managed a 300 yard rushing game against Fresno State, which has been the most rushing yards by any player in the FBS this season. He can be slowed down though, as evidenced by his 22 yards on 17 rushes last week against SDSU. The Lobos seem particularly susceptible to giving up a lot of yards on the ground, especially now that they’ve had a few injuries on the defensive line, so figuring out a way to contain Ervin will be a necessity.
On defense, SJSU shines against the pass, only allowing opponents to complete 51.4% of their passes on the season and, by FEI metrics, they rank as the 49th best team against the pass. However, they struggle against the run, ranking as the 109th best team in that category. That bodes well for the Lobos who, aside from the occasional game-winning touchdown drive, don’t really pass all that much. The Spartans are on defense led by LB Christian Tago, whose 55 tackles and 7.5 tackles for losses are the most on the team, and CB Jimmy Pruitt, who has two interceptions on the season.
As a final note, their punter, Michael Carrizosa, leads the nation in punting this season, averaging 50.2 yards per punt. It will be interesting to see how well he is able to do kicking it to Carlos Wiggins, however.
Team Comparison
Finally, OFEI and DFEI ratings have started to be updated after each week, so we can see how the Lobos and their opponents are doing by those metrics this season compared to all of the other FBS teams. Unfortunately, where the Lobos look to be in worse shape this year, as they no longer have an above average offense. As we can see in the plot below, neither does SJSU.
San Jose State currently sits as the 109th ranked offense and the 116th ranked defense in the country, compared to the Lobos who are the 95th and 115th ranked respectively. By the FEI metrics, the Lobos have actually been the better team so far this season, although other advanced metrics systems have slightly different opinions of the Spartans. For example, ESPN’s Football Power Index has them ranked 94th overall compared to UNM’s 107 ranking. Regardless, it appears that these two teams are fairly similar in terms of overall ability.
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 see that both the Lobos and the Spartans have similarly producing offenses overall, but they go about it slightly differently. SJSU has been noticeably more effective in the air than the Lobos, while the Lobos have been better on the ground. On defense, however, we see a big difference between the two teams, particularly in that SJSU is really good at stopping passing plays.
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 3.5 points per game. Again, the MVSU game is still paying dividends. SJSU has been outscored by 1.5 points per game, which is a little misleading because their closest game all season was a six point win in overtime vs. UNLV. All off their other games were either big wins or big losses. So, they average out to a small negative point differential.
What’s going on at Quarterback? (Week 8 Edition)
We’re back at it this week, trying to figure out exactly what is happening at the QB position. Last week, we saw Lamar Jordan start and play the majority of the game before turning it over to Austin Apodaca, who led the all-passing game-winning drive. Apodaca has certainly made his case for more playing time, and it sounds like the coaches are trying to figure out how to get him in the game a little more. However, Jordan is still the starting quarterback for the time being. That’s probably a good thing this week, as SJSU is better on defense against the pass compared to the run. That all said, it’s been great to see the two of them being so supportive of each other, with one of the lasting images from last game being Jordan jumping on top of Apodaca to celebrate the game winning touchdown pass.
Can we stop the run?
Isaiah Brown and Markel Byrd are back this week, after serving one-game suspensions for missing classes, so the passing defense should be stronger than it was last week. However, as mentioned previously, the Lobos defensive line is kind of banged up right now, with Kene Okonkwo still out and Garret Hughes and Chris Lee now looking like they’ll join him on the sidelines this weekend. This doesn’t bode well for the Lobos, as SJSU has one of the most productive running backs in the nation in Tyler Ervin. This means that the linebackers, particularly Dakota Cox and Kimmie Carson, will need to be on their game this weekend if they are going to be able to stop Ervin from running all over them.
Prediction
The line for this game has SJSU by 7.5, which I think is a surprisingly large spread for two teams who seem fairly even to me. Even if I wasn’t a homer picking UNM to win anyway, I’d probably bet on UNM with that spread. That said, I am a homer, so I’ll pick the Lobos to come out with a 30-27 win.
Game Info
What: The University of New Mexico (4-3) at San Jose State University (3-4)
Where: Spartan Stadium, San Jose, CA
When: Saturday, October 24 at 5pm MT
Where to Watch: Root Sports
How to Listen: 770 KKOB