For months, November 14th, 2015 was penciled in as a loss. The team from New Mexico was supposed to go on the road, face a dominant opponent, lose in a blowout, and collect a paycheck for their troubles. In fact, that was supposed to happen twice. Instead, within the span of a couple of hours, Albuquerque native Holly Holm knocked out Rhonda Rousey and the New Mexico Lobos beat Boise State on their blue turf, giving New Mexico its best sports day ever.
While Holly was getting ready for her big fight, the Lobos started the game in a fashion that played to everyone’s expectations. On their first drive, they lost 18 yards over three plays and were forced to punt out of their end zone, which gave Boise State great field position to start their first drive. The Broncos wasted no time in marching down the field, only needing two plays to go from their own 43 yard line to the UNM 9 yard line, and it seemed inevitable that the dangerous Boise offense was going to score the first of its many points on the night. However, on their fourth play, QB Brett Rypien’s pass was deflected into the arms of Ryan Langford, giving the Lobos their first defensive stop of the game. After another Lobo punt, the Broncos marched right back down the field, ultimately settling for a 22 yard field goal attempt. Unfortunately for them, it was New Mexico’s Night, not Idaho’s. The attempt missed and two plays and 80 yards later, the Lobos were up 7-0 on a 76 yard Jhurell Pressley run.
In the second quarter, the Lobos continued to control the game, only allowing Boise to score a single field goal while they stretched the lead out to 14-3 by halftime. By no means did that lead feel safe. For one, Lamar Jordan was knocked out of the game just before halftime, which meant that Austin Apodaca would be the only real option at QB while the Lobos tried to close things out. For another, Boise is a really good team. It seemed unlikely that the Lobos were going to keep the Boise offense down for the rest of the game and the Boise defense seemed like it had the potential to stifle the Lobos in the second half. I don’t know what was happening in Vegas, but I imagine that the Lobos were still considered underdogs at the half.
A little after 10:45 Albuquerque time, Apodaca kept the ball on an option to the left from the Boise 30 yard line and had the ball knocked out his hand and into a pile of Broncos. At the time, the Lobos were up 17-10, but that fumble gave Boise all of the momentum. The Boise defense was as pumped as they had been all game, the stadium had come to life, and the Lobos started looking a bit dejected. Just a few minutes later, Holly Holm landed a kick to Rhonda Rousey’s face, breaking the champ’s jaw and knocking her cold. Online, all attention turned to the first upset of the night. And why shouldn’t it have? Not only was it great to see, while Albuquerque was celebrating Holm, Boise tied the game at 17, which meant that it was likely that was the only upset we were going to see that night.
Then, the fourth quarter started. The Lobos showed that they weren’t done yet when Apodaca hit Delane Hart-Johnson for an 80-plus yard reception, Hart-Johnson’s second in two weeks, which set up an easy, one yard touchdown run by Richard McQuarley. Then, the Lobos didn’t give the Broncos much of a chance to strike back, as Cranston Jones intercepted Rypien’s third down pass, giving the Lobos great field position to score another touchdown, which put them up 31-17. At that point, the upset started to feel more real. In part, I think, because we had just seen another upset and also in part because the defense had been playing so well the last seven quarters. 14 points seemed like enough.
And it was, but just barely. The Lobos were able to hold that until about three minutes left in the game, thanks to a few nice defensive stands, but the Broncos have an explosive offense. In less than a minute, Boise drove 59 yards to score the first of their two needed touchdowns. Thankfully, the Lobos were able to recover the onside kick, but the offense wasn’t able to get the first down they needed to just kneel out the game. Boise got the ball back needing to drive 90 yards in 1:17 to get the tie and send the game to overtime. After they were bailed out by a questionable pass interference call on 4th and 21 and had a fumble squirt out of a Lobo’s hands and out of bounds, Boise had one second to score a touchdown from their own 40 yard line. Here’s what happened on that play:
Their play went for 56 yards, but thanks to a Markel Byrd solo tackle, that was still four yards short. The Lobos walked off the field as only the fifth team to beat Boise on the blue turf since 1999 and with their sixth win of the season, insuring bowl eligibility. Against all odds, New Mexico got its second upset of the night.
Here are two images that by all accounts shouldn’t exist. The first shows Holly Holm having her arm raised while the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion is being wrapped around her waist. The second has Bob Davie standing in the middle of his team, striking a pose on Boise’s blue field while his players celebrate all around him. The fact that these moments exist is why sports are so fun and worth following, because the seemingly impossible does sometimes happen and can lift the spirits of an entire community. Go Holly Holm. Go Lobos. Go New Mexico.