2016 was a wildly successful season for Lobo football. They went 9-4 on the year, including their first bowl win in ages, and led the nation in rushing with a ridiculous 350 yards per game. Most importantly, they went from being a truly downtrodden program to one that wins its division. If the past few season had been a movie, the credits would have rolled after a freeze frame of Bob Davie being carried off the field after his first bowl win and everyone would have gone home from the theater with a smile on their face.
But, because it’s not a movie, there’s another season to be played, and it’s finally here. This year’s team will be looking to build on the momentum and success of the last couple of years, but they have a few challenges in their way to do so. So with that in mind, here are a few thoughts that I have coming into this season:
Can the Defense Catch the Offense?
The past couple of seasons, the offense has been where the Lobos have shined. However, the defense, while improved from before, has been inconsistent. The stats highlight that that, with the Lobos using their strong rushing attack to propel them to a top-40 offense by efficiency, while the defense remains towards the bottom. We can see this in the plot below, where all of the Mountain West teams are shown with their offensive and defensive efficiency ratings. The dashed lines are the FBS averages while the axes range from the best team in FBS to the worst. Further to the right is better on offense while further down is better on defense.
As we can see, the Lobos fall solidly in the “Good O, Bad D” quadrant, joining a few other MW teams (note that only Boise State was above average in both metrics). The prevailing thought is if only they could keep the offense where it is, but improve the defense, they could move down into the “Good O, Good D” quadrant, which is exactly where they want to be. For instance, Georgia Tech, who runs a similarly run-heavy offense, went 9-4 out of the ACC despite having a worse-rated offense. The difference was that their defense was rated 57th, not 121th. If the Lobos are going to make the leap as a program, that’s where the growth needs to come from.
Of course, that’s where most of the unknowns are this season. On offense, the Lobos return most of their starters, including a now-senior Lamar Jordan at quarterback, a never-ending gauntlet of quality running backs, headlined by Tyrone Owens and Richard McQuarley, pretty much all of their receivers, and most of the offensive line. The only questions seem to be what new wrinkles are going to be added to make it a more dynamic offense.
Defense is a little different, as the losses were much heavier. Gone are Dakota Cox, Daniel Henry, Nik D’Avanzo, and five other starters. Thankfully, it feels like there is a bunch of talent being plugged in, but until we get to see them in action, it’s hard to say how good they will be. In my mind, how well they do will dictate the type of season the team has, so I’m certainly hoping that they can be the best Lobo defense in years.
On a side note, I think the special teams unit will be awesome this year.
Not a Schedule for the Weak
Aside from the roster differences, perhaps the biggest change for the Lobos is who is on the schedule this year. There are the usual faces (NMSU, the rest of the Mountain Division), but the rest of the opponents have seen a big upgrade (I’ll put their projected FPI ratings in parentheses). Instead of Rutgers (90), we go to Texas A&M (27). Instead of Louisiana-Monroe (123), we get Tulsa (64). And the trio of SDSU (61), Fresno State (108), and UNLV (107) project to be better than Hawaii, (103) Nevada (110), and SJSU (118). In the plot below, we can see where all 128 FBS teams finished in terms of F/+ last season (which I think is better for measuring how a team did compared to FPI, but the point remains).
As we can see, most of the teams on the schedule rated out better than the Lobos last season, some significantly so. What that means is that it’s entirely possible for the Lobos to be a better team this year, but have a significantly worse record. In fact, most projections that I’ve seen have the Lobos winning somewhere around 4-5 games. I think that I’d take the over on that, but sill, a bowl game this season would be nothing to sneeze at.
Field of Dreams
Okay, so given that going into last year, the Lobos were coming off of a successful season, had big goals, and an exciting offense, what do you think happened to the attendance? If you said that it dropped by nearly 4000 fans per game, you’d be both a huge downer and completely right. If we don’t count the New Mexico Bowl appearances, the Lobo’s attendance dropped from 22,562 per game to 18,708. In fact, if we do throw in the NM Bowl, the number only increases to 20,276, which is the lowest average attendance since 1992.
Clearly that’s bad, but there are some reasonable explanations. For one, two of their six home games were at 8:15, thanks to ESPN, and featured sub-par weather. Two more of the games were on friday nights (thanks again, ESPN), which competes against high school football and people’s friday nights in general, while the remaining two games were against an FCS school and a team that should probably have been in the FCS. All in all, not a great schedule to draw fans to the stadium.
On one hand, it’s great that the Lobos got big paydays for those ESPN games, but on the other, the team actually needs fans to go to their games. Not only does it create a better atmosphere for the game itself, it helps create the next generation of Lobo fans (including students!). We didn’t become Lobo fans just by watching the games on tv, but by actually going to the stadium. I understand that the money is desperately needed by the athletic department right now, but in the long run, it might be worth it for the games to be at a time when both kids and college students might actually show up.