Four things Jason Eck said at Mountain West Media Days

LAS VEGAS – Did an 11th place finish in the Mountain West preseason poll phase Jason Eck?

“I kind of laughed — I said whoever voted us to get ahead of Nevada probably thought (former UNM quarterback Devon Dampier) was still here,” New Mexico’s first-year head coach said Thursday. “I don’t know — maybe (Nevada head coach Jeff Choate) stiffed somebody on a bar tab once.”

As part of his first Mountain West Media Days appearance, Eck held court at Circa Resort & Casino to discuss everything from the Lobos’ expected finish to ongoing recruiting efforts.

Four things Jason Eck said at Mountain West Media Days:

1. The QB competition is a two-horse race — for now

After breaking spring practice without a starter, Eck confirmed that Idaho transfer Jack Layne and James Laubstein will be at the front of fall camp’s quarterback competition — at least for the time being. The former was sidelined with an elbow injury during spring, but has recovered and will be a full-go throughout camp.

“Those are the strongest leading candidates going in,” Eck said of Layne and Laubstein, “but we have to do a really good job getting those other guys a lot of reps. I do think, in the spring, when we got to see James versus (quarterback Gabriel Motschenbacher) up close so much, James was ahead of Gabe. I think it would be tough for Gabe to overcome that and be a starter, though he showed some good things where he can be ready to go if we have some injuries and things like that.

“But I think the two new guys (UConn transfer Cole Welliver and freshman Toa Faavae) we gotta really get a good feel for early, just to see, ‘hey, can we add them to the competition? Or are they going to be guys we have to develop over time?’”

Eck also went into detail on how they’ll be evaluating each quarterback during the competition, namely: “Are they putting the ball on the money? We track that so a quarterback isn’t penalized if he has a drop — you know, we kind of look at an adjusted completion percentage. If the guy drops it, we don’t hold that against him.

“We’re trying to evaluate what would be a sack, because we do need to extend plays and show (an) ability to move in the pocket and get away. Even though we’re not live (tackling) we still wanna try to evaluate that … and then, how many times are we executing things right?

“Are we making the right read? Are we making the right decision? Those are the factors that will define who wins the job.”

2. The defensive line might be deeper than expected

Before and during spring practice, Eck said UNM would probably have to hit the portal to bolster the depth on its defensive line, one of the weaker parts of last year’s team. But even after the Lobos only added one player (Jones (Miss.) College transfer Jalen McIver) defensive lineman Gabe Lopez said Wednesday he believed UNM’s front is the deepest he’s ever seen it.

What changed?

“We’ve (made) made some movements within the group that I think are going to improve it,” he said. “You have guys like Gabe and then (Okiki Olorunfunmi), who played mostly defensive end spots in the past that we’re gonna use inside. That was, really, an effort to get more speed and athleticism on the field, and both of those guys have embraced it and put on some good weight.”

“ … But we got to play a lot of guys there. We got to keep our defensive line fresh. We got to keep them rotating so that they can play with great effort … Defensive line is a unique position — you can be more productive playing less.

“It’s better sometimes to play, 35 snaps than 50 snaps, because your effort’s going to be able to be better in those 35 snaps.”

3. He doesn’t consider this a rebuilding year

At least not publicly, Eck has never referred to his first season at UNM as a rebuild. Why?

“I think we’ll be a lot better than people anticipate us to (be),” he said. “I would never say, ‘yeah, we’re gonna be in the thick of the conference championship race in late November’ or anything. But I think we can make huge strides as a program.

“And I just think things have changed so much … you can change from one year to the next so much easier than you used to, just because your roster looks so much different from year to year. It used to be that 25 (players) was the maximum guys that you could bring in, so if you had 120 guys on the roster, it was less than 25% of your roster.

“Now you’re looking at so many years where half the roster is new. You can look at it as rebuilding because we don’t have a lot of guys back from last year, but I think everybody in the country has the opportunity to do that. I got a lot higher expectations and again, my goal is to get to the postseason this year.”

4. Lobos have made ‘strides’ in recruiting recently

UNM went on an extended recruiting run with the class of 2026 in June, landing commitments from over 10 three-star prospects. Eck said he thought the program made “really good strides” in doing so, even if they weren’t able to devote their full energies to the class immediately.

“In some ways, we were a little bit behind and had to catch up,” he said. “Next January, we really wanna be focused on the next class. This January, we had to focus a lot on finishing this (2025) class.

“And I’m glad we did because (incoming freshman safety Nick Wheeler) is a guy who we had on a visit, like, the last weekend before signing day, and now I think he looks like one of the best guys in the freshman class. But it was important for us to kind of get back caught up and on schedule.”