Lobo football: Three keys and a prediction for New Mexico-San Jose State

If San Jose State’s record might be lying, the tape isn’t — at least according to one Lobo.

“They’re definitely not a 1-3 team,” New Mexico quarterback Jack Layne said Tuesday. “I would say they’re a really good football team. You can tell by watching the film.”

Friday, the Lobos will get to see it on the field. UNM opens Mountain West play at San Jose State on Friday, the first conference game for head coach Jason Eck after a 3-1 start to the season.

Three keys and a prediction for the Lobos’ conference opener:

1. Limit explosive plays

Implemented by offensive coordinator and former Hawaii quarterback Craig Stutzmann, SJSU’s offense is known as the spread and shred. It’s a unique, up-tempo variation of the run-and-shoot that places a premium on one-on-one matchups and explosive plays through the air, with concepts drawn from Stutzmann’s 20-plus years of coaching experience and the offense he ran in college.

In other words: “They wanna chunk you,” defensive coordinator Spence Nowinsky said Monday.

And with the spread and shred, SJSU has shown they can do just that. The Spartans accounted for 64 explosive plays (20-plus yards or more) in the passing game last season, Stutzmann’s first with the program. No other Mountain West team had more than 41. Even amid a 1-3 start, SJSU is still firmly in the upper half of the league with 16 explosives.

Why? For starters, it’s still the run-and-shoot in one major way: Like the most basic (albeit innovative) versions Glenn “Tiger” Ellison and Mouse Davis ran in the past, receivers are given the freedom to adjust routes based on the coverage they’re seeing.

“They have built in things that they rep so much that, if the leverage is here, they’re gonna break in,” Eck said. “If the leverage is here, they’re gonna break out. It’s difficult because you can’t really take away plays.”

That the receivers are pretty good anyway also poses a problem. With 33 catches for 514 yards and three touchdowns, SJSU sophomore Danny Scudero is the national leader in receiving yards per game (128.5 yards) in no small part because he can get behind just about any defense he faces.

“(Scudero) is fast as heck,” Eck said. “He can get vertical.”

Fellow receiver Kyri Shoels (23 catches, 269 yards, two touchdowns) and tight end Jackson Canaan (13 catches, 160 yards) also get plenty of work in an offense that can pop for the big play against just about anybody — especially UNM.

After last week’s 38-20 win over New Mexico State, the Lobos have given up 18 explosive passes this season, the most of any Mountain West team and on pace to match the defense’s total from a year ago.

Granted, they haven’t been burned for long touchdowns in the way that defense was, but if the Lobos did a solid job keeping things in front of them playing Idaho State — one of the few offenses that makes for a good comparison to SJSU’s — they’ll have to do an even better job against the Spartans.

“This will be a good test for us,” Eck said.

2. Confuse the quarterback

The player running the spread and shred? None other than quarterback Walker Eget, a 6-foot-3, 223-pound redshirt senior who’s leading the Mountain West in passing yards per game (296.8) and big time throws (13) — a Pro Football Focus metric tracking passes “with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown further down the field and/or into a tighter window.”

Eget can also get the ball out quickly — something that troubled UNM’s defense in its game against Idaho State — and plays in an offense with wide splits that help minimize an opponents’ pass rush. Mixing things up on the back end and giving him even a second more pause might be one of the biggest keys towards limiting SJSU’s offense.

“We gotta try to have some confusion where he doesn’t know what (coverage) we’re in,” Eck said. “Because if he knows what we’re in, he’s gonna know where to go with the ball, with the hardest routes to defend against that coverage.”

3. Keep progressing in the passing game

Enough about SJSU’s passing game. What about UNM’s? Because against NMSU, it was the best it’s been this season. Quarterback Jack Layne completed 23 of 30 passes for 303 yards and four touchdowns, with wide receiver Keagan Johnson (five catches, 117 yards, one touchdown) finally looking like the WR1 he was expected to be.

In a 30-29 loss to Stanford last week, SJSU sold out against the run in the same way NMSU did against UNM. It doesn’t seem like the Spartans will go that route against the Lobos, so keeping that momentum in the passing game will be key in a game where UNM should have every opportunity to be more balanced.

Prediction

While the Spartans should shred at points, I think that balance — and the personnel that fuels it — gives UNM a (very thin) edge here. New Mexico 31, San Jose State 30