Saturday Afternoon was full of emotions around the Lobo Football Program, it was a new beginning with the official start of Coach Bronco Mendenhall’s Era, the first game of the season, and the first heartbreak of the season. The Lobos entered the game as 13.5-point underdogs against a Top 5 FCS Program in Montana State, and they gave the Bobcats all they could handle, leading at one point by 17. The Bobcats scored the game-winning touchdown with 10 seconds remaining to give them the 35-31 win in both teams’ opening game. While it wasn’t the best outcome for the Lobos to lose the opener (Captain Obvious), many things looked good during the first game, things that they can work on, and other observations from the game on Saturday. Here are some of the things that stood out from the game on Saturday.

Bright Spots:

• One of the brightest positives from the game on Saturday was the improvement in discipline. After leading the Nation in Penalty yards last season the Lobos, were penalized only four times for 30 yards compared to the average of 9.9 penalties and 89.7 yards per game last season. While it’s almost impossible to look at a one-game sample size, the signs were there that this is a way more disciplined team. It was interesting to watch the game and think there wouldn’t be a penalty on every play. We will keep an eye on this trend and see if the new staff can keep this up.
• Devon Dampier showed great signs of being the real deal, he took charge of the offense and kept their composer. A couple of plays break the other way, you would have been talking about a great game in the opener for Dampier. His ability to be a true dual threat was on display, and his fake handoff for his rushing touchdown will be on replays and highlight tapes for a while. It will be interesting to see how he can handle the next couple of weeks against a couple of good teams in Arizona and Auburn on the road. The early returns of him being the QB1 are on the bright side.
• Eli Sanders and Luke Wysong each brought good things to the table as playmakers against Montana State. Sanders rushed for 87 on 17 carries including a couple of long runs. Wysong had 95 yards on 6 catches and did force a couple of DPIs on the Bobcats defense. It was great to see Sanders take on the lead-back role and to see Wysong back and healthy leading the WRs room. If Wysong had made that last catch (probably for a touchdown) his play probably would have the brightest spot for the Lobos on Saturday.
• The Lobos defense had a very interesting day on Saturday, we’ll look at the negatives later, but there were bright spots for the defense. The big individual plays were there, which is something that has been missed in the last couple of years. Scoring two defensive touchdowns is always going to be something that will be talked about, but the thing that impressed me most was how for 95% of the game the defense would win their battles on the big plays. There were many times when they needed multiple stops (3rd and 4th down) to end drives, and they were up to the task. While there are things that didn’t go well, there are things that are there to be a good defensive team this year.
• Seeing the announced crowd of 17,314 was good, after hearing they were expecting around 15,000. While it isn’t where UNM and the Athletics Department want the attendance numbers, having a baseline of 17k is way better than the 10k they have been at the last handful of years. The crowd was into the game which was great to see, it will be interesting to see how these numbers change through the rest of the year, with only four remaining home games and no NMSU on the schedule.

Shady Spots:

• Montana State is a talented team that is exceptional at running the football, so some of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The Bobcats did rush for 362 yards on 47 carries (7.7 average) which isn’t good. One thing that has to be remembered is that 93 of those yards came on one run, I think the Lobos defense did an okay job stopping the run for 80% of the game, but the big plays they allowed are what need to be addressed. If you want to win games you can’t allow 93-yard runs after pinning the opponents’ offense inside the 10. If the Lobos can find a way to stop the explosive plays from happening they could be a decent rush defense.
• In the last 8 minutes or so, the Lobos needed most big plays to go against them, and the Bobcats needed almost everything to go their way. That is exactly what happened. If any of the plays broke the other way, we are likely talking about a great Lobo win instead of talking about these moments. The two drops were drive killers that had different implications, Wysong probably scored a touchdown on that play putting the game out of reach (Montana State scored the 93-yard TD), and Medford’s drop would have ended the game as Montana State couldn’t stop the clock enough times to get the ball back. The thing that stings more about both of those plays, they were both on 3rd down so there was no other play to be made by the offense.
• This isn’t a knock of the game being scheduled, but we (Jono and Zach) are both trying to understand why this game was scheduled in the first place. Paying a good sum of money to play against a Top 5 FCS Program is always going to be a difficult task. Tack on playing two buy-games right after this, and a road NMSU game as your non-conference schedule (counting Washington State as a scheduled MW game, since the conference scheduled the game), is likely the hardest non-conference schedule the Lobos have played. My only hope is that this potential 0-3 start doesn’t impact the program and attendance before conference play starts.

Next up:

The Lobos head to Arizona and will face off against Coach Gonzales and former star running back Jacory (Bill) Croskey-Merritt on Saturday at 7:30 PM on ESPN. Arizona will be paying the Lobos 900k with 500k of that already being paid. While a win is not likely, if the Lobos can build off the positives from the Montana State game, this team will still have plenty to play for moving forward.