A week after getting crushed at home by a tough Boise State squad, the Lobos were sitting at 2-3 and heading out of town to face what was probably the toughest opponent remaining on their schedule. Needless to say, it looked like they were in a bad place. However, rather than choosing to stand by and let their season collapse around them, the Lobos picked themselves up and played their best game all season to beat the Air Force Falcons 45-40. They’re now 3-3 on the season, including 2-1 in conference play, and are starting to look like the team we were hoping they would be going into the season.

Here are a few scattered thoughts about the game:

• It feels a little weird praising a defense that gave up over 500 yards in the game, but while the offense is what got the lead in the first place, the defense is what secured the win. Once Lamar Jordan went out with an injury midway through the second half, the offense stagnated, racking up a grand total of 8 yards in the fourth quarter before they started kneeling. That left the defense needing to hang onto an 11-point lead for the whole quarter pretty much by itself. It proved up to the task, only allowing the Falcons to string together one good drive the rest of the way. A big part of that was that the Lobos were able to shut down the Air Force running game, noticeably taking away the option on a few plays and forcing the Falcons to go to the air. While their team name might say otherwise, that’s not their strong suit, and once the Lobos were able to take away the Falcon’s top receiver, their offense was pretty much neutralized. A lot of the Lobos’ potential this season hinged on the defense taking another step forward, and maybe, just maybe, they’ve finally done it.
• Speaking of Lamar Jordan, the game plan with him behind center was clearly to run the ball as much as possible, but it’s worth noting that he was still able to throw two touchdowns in a game for the first time in his career. Plus, he managed to do that on only 3 completions in 6 attempts, which means that he picked his spots pretty well in this game. All in all, he played with as much confidence as we’ve seen out of him all year, which means that it’s a bummer that he got injured in this one. Hopefully he’s able to come back soon and keep playing at a high level.
• For the second straight game, the Lobos faced a highly-touted run defense and still trampled all over them. They ran the ball 55 times for 373 yards, good for 6.8 yards per carry, and four rushing touchdowns. Teriyon Gipson and Tyrone Owens were the highlights, gaining 140 and 126 yards respectively and both ripping off runs for more than 50 yards. McQuarley didn’t have any huge gains in this one, as he was mostly called on to pick up first downs and touchdowns in short-yardage situations, but he still managed to pick up 2 touchdowns and remains a viable option for your fantasy team.
  As an aside, I’ve wondered a little about why the Lobos have had so much success running the ball against such good run defenses. I think the answer is simply that they run the ball differently than anyone else out there, making them really hard to prepare for. That actually highlights a blind spot in analytics, as I think that the ratings don’t really handle “weird” teams like this well. If the Lobos ran the ball a lot, but did it like a standard run offense, then Air Force and others would likely not have much trouble stopping the offense (I think we saw a taste of that when Apodaca was in and the offense was pretty much limited to dives up the middle). But they don’t have a standard run offense, which probably makes those sort of ratings irrelevant. I could be wrong on this, but it’s something I’ll try to keep in mind in the future.
• There were a couple of really strong special teams performances in this game, particularly the impressive debut of Elijah Lilly, kick returner. Lilly returned four kicks for an average of 40 yards, nearly breaking away for a touchdown multiple times. He looks like he could be a dynamic addition to the roster and we can’t discount how valuable it is for the Lobos to regularly start drives with good field position. On the flip side of that equation, Jason Sanders had one of his most impressive games, recording 7 touchbacks on 8 kickoffs and kicking a 49-yard field goal. That field goal in particular was impressive, as it was not only the longest of his career, there was no doubt about it. If he can keep improving his accuracy, he could become one of the most dangerous kickers that the Lobos have had and potentially get some looks at the next level. I think he has the leg for it.
• It’s hard to stress how important this game was to getting the Lobos’ season back on track. After all, another loss, while not season-ending, would have left them with little room for error the rest of the way if they wanted to make a second consecutive bowl game and this team has been fairly prone to errors. However, they’re now in a pretty good spot, with a 3-3 record and a manageable schedule ahead of them. Looking at the estimated win probabilities based on ESPN’s FPI metric, the Lobos currently have a 74% chance of finishing the season with at least six wins, which will almost certainly put them in another bowl game. If they had lost this game, their chances would have been closer to 40%, which might have even felt high. As I mentioned, the schedule ahead is pretty doable, as although the Lobos can certainly lose to any of the teams left, they have a shot to beat them all. It should be fun to see how this all plays out.