We’re only a few weeks into the college football season, but it’s already been an eventful season for the Lobos, particularly with two consecutive gut-punch losses heading into a break. With the team having a bye week this past weekend and conference play starting in earnest this weekend, I figured that it would be a good time to see where things stand for the Lobos and the conference, and look to see where they go from here.
What has happened so Far
The Lobos have played three games this season, picking up a win against the FCS South Dakota Coyotes while dropping leads, and games, to both NMSU and Rutgers. At times, the team has looked like everything is coming together, with the offense supplementing their standard powerful running attack with a newly effective passing game and the defense forcing punts and turnovers. Then, maybe even just minutes later, the team can look sloppy on offense and completely ineffective on defense. The defense, in particular, has been bipolar. On one hand, they haven’t allowed more than 350 of offense yet this season. On the other hand, they’ve allowed huge plays in each game, making it stop looking like a fluke and more like a trend.
When I’ve recapped each loss, it was hard to not look back at the mistakes and think that if even one of those things had gone differently in each game, the Lobos would be 3-0 right now. That tells me a couple of things. First, although I think that they are, in general, a better team than last year, they aren’t good enough to overcome that many mistakes, no matter the opponent. Secondly, and more optimistically, I also think that if they can cut down on those lapses, they can beat anyone on their schedule. Who knows? Maybe this bye week has given them the chance to tighten things up some and they’ll go on a run. After all, they did exactly that last year.
Looking Around the League
As was the case last year, the biggest advantage that the Lobos have in their search for bowl-eligibility is that the Mountain West, as a whole, just isn’t that good at football. By Football Outsiders’ F/+ combined ratings, the conference has exactly three teams in the upper half of the FBS in Boise State (ranked 20th), SDSU (45th), and Air Force (60th). The next team that shows up in the ratings is Utah State, who are ranked 90th. Would you believe that the Lobos are the fifth-best team in the conference by these rankings? They’re right behind USU, ranked 93rd.
And if you go by what we’ve seen on the field, that should come as a surprise. Like the Lobos, Fresno State, Hawai’i, San Jose State, and UNLV each only have a single win against an FCS school to their credit. Of the teams that do have wins against FBS schools, only SDSU and Boise State have wins against teams from Power 5 conferences, and none of those were particularly eye-opening. In fact, by the F/+ combined ratings, the best win for the conference was SDSU’s 45-40 win at home against Cal, the 55th ranked team.
This puts the conference in a weird place this year, similar to how basketball was last year. Without any marquee wins to date, the conference isn’t going to get any respect when people start looking at the postseason. This sort of happened last year too. Remember how CSU and Nevada were stuck playing each other in a game that was only available nationally by streaming? Bottom line is that if SDSU or Boise State happens to win the conference while picking up one or two losses, there’s a decent chance that they won’t end up in a good bowl game, and that’s bad for everyone in the conference.
What Comes Next?
Here’s the remaining schedule for the Lobos:
That’s… not too bad, honestly. They have a bit of a tough stretch when they play Boise State at home and then Air Force in Dallas, but every single one of those games is winnable. Of course, if we’ve learned anything from the past two games it’s that this Lobo team can look like world-beaters and doormats in the same game, so it truly feels like just about anything is possible over the rest of the season. I’m going to be slightly optimistic and say that they end up going 6-3 over these last 9 games, but really, anything between 3-7 wins during that stretch wouldn’t surprise me at all.
It all starts with San Jose State this weekend, though. A win will set them back on the path towards another winning record and re-instill some confidence in the fan base. I don’t really want to think about what a loss might do.