Jason Eck: Home crowd less than 25-30k against Colorado State would be 'disappointing'

At 6-3, New Mexico just ended a near decade-long bowl drought.

Jason Eck would like to see Lobo fans snap an even longer attendance streak.

UNM’s first-year head coach said he thinks it’ll be disappointing if there aren’t more than “25,000 or 30,000” fans at University Stadium for the Lobos’ Nov. 15 game against Colorado State.

The Lobos have not had a November crowd over 20,000 since 2015. UNM is averaging 23,352 fans this season, a figure driven by an announced crowd of 37,440 in attendance for a 38-20 win over rival New Mexico State on Sept. 27.

Winners of three straight, the Lobos are on a bye this week after clinching their first bowl appearance since 2016 with a 40-35 win at UNLV.

“To me, (the Colorado State) game is big to get 25,000 or 30,000 people in the stadium … And you know what, the last time we came in with a little bit of a winning streak, we had a huge crowd for New Mexico State,” Eck said in a news conference Tuesday. “Obviously that was an in-state rivalry, so I don’t expect it to be a full packed house (against Colorado State).

“But you need to have investment (from) fans. You need to have investment from boosters. I think they can be more involved than any other time (in the past). You look at a team like Texas Tech who’s in the top 10 and has College Gameday. And they were a team that, 20 years ago, really wasn’t a top 10 team, and I think their fanbase and boosters have helped propel them to that.

“So I think that’s big for our fans to show up and show that that’s important to them, being good in football.”

UNM has not had a November crowd over 25,000 since Nov. 1, 2008, a 13-10 loss to tenth-ranked Utah at University Stadium.

“I know people complain about the weather. I think the weather here is the most beautiful weather ever,” Eck continued. “I mean, even if it’s in the high 50s. Nov. 15, high 50s for a football game? That’s gorgeous.

“I’ve been to a lot of football games in the 20s in late November,” he chuckled.

Championship-bound?

While UNM doesn’t quite control its own destiny, the Lobos do have a path to the Mountain West Championship game — so long as they win out against Colorado State, Air Force and league-leading San Diego State.

At least for now, Eck isn’t talking to his team about that possibility.

“We don’t control our own destiny in that,” Eck said. “So I don’t like talking about things and focusing on things you can’t control. That hasn’t come up. If it gets to the point that we do (control our own destiny), then I think it would be something we bring up.

“But to me, this is a big week just to improve. And as we get into next week, it’s the quest for seven wins ... Is that really a good season if you get to a bowl game 6-6, lose it and finish with a losing record?”

Staying home?

After securing a postseason bid, Eck made it clear: UNM would be more than happy to play in the Isleta New Mexico Bowl (Dec. 27).

“I think for where we are right now, not having been in a bowl game (until) this year, it would be awesome for the program,” Eck said. “And, you know, I think we’d have a ton of fans here. Hopefully, that would be a great deal. And we’ll have to be creative to do stuff around that if we’re in that bowl game, to make it special and fun to our players.

“ … Now, I plan on being bowl-eligible a lot over the coming years, so I don’t know if I’d want to come to the game three straight years or something. I think we’d probably want to have some changeup … But I think it’d be great for our program, and I think that would help make it easy for our fans to get there obviously.”

On a bye

Eck said UNM will practice twice this week (one less than its first bye week) with Wednesday’s session featuring a scrimmage for underclassmen.

“We got to keep trying to develop those guys,” he added. “ ... When you’re building a good program, we’ll need to have some guys that didn’t play a lot (the year before), but were on the team, that become good players next year.”