New Mexico had issues protecting quarterback Jack Layne against Michigan. Why?

Jason Eck knew Jack Layne could take a hit or two.

After all, New Mexico’s head coach has worked with the 6-foot-2, 206-pound junior quarterback over the last four years at Idaho and UNM. He’s seen him win and lose competitions, battle back from injuries. His toughness was never a question, even if fans hadn’t quite seen it.

Did he necessarily want everybody else to know just how tough Layne was this early?

“No,” Eck said Tuesday.

Understandable. In a 34-17 loss to Michigan, Layne stood in the pocket, delivered throws and took a pounding the likes of which UNM fans haven’t seen in years. And while it was clear to anyone watching, the extent of the onslaught might still be debated. For instance, Pro Football Focus (PFF) had Layne taking six hits. The official game stats had it at seven. Members of UNM’s offensive line said it was nine.

For his part, Layne got up after each and every single hit — including a shot from Michigan linebacker Jaishawn Barham that was ruled targeting upon review. But if there was one red flag from a closer-than-expected loss, it might have been the Lobos’ struggles to give Layne a consistently clean pocket.

Why?

On one hand, it’s fair to say this might have been an expected outcome. Michigan is not only one of the more talented defenses in the country, but it finished last season as PFF’s highest-rated pass rushing team with 36 sacks. That the Wolverines masqueraded, simulated and brought pressure against UNM was hardly a surprise — it’s who they are, the type of football they play.

“They have eight blitz threats every play,” Layne said Tuesday. “And they do a good job disguising other overloads, and where they’re coming from. (The offense isn’t) gonna pick up everything, that’s just the nature of how that goes.”

Michigan limiting UNM to just 50 yards on the ground only played into that further. Layne threw 47 passes Saturday, far and away the most in his college career. It’s hard to protect better and more often, especially against talent like Michigan’s, in a first game, with a new-look offensive line.

On the other hand?

“It’s not acceptable,” center Kaden Robnett said. “We can’t let our quarterback take nine hits and three sacks in one game.”

Upon reviewing the tape from Michigan, Eck said he thought it was encouraging — if frustrating — that many of UNM’s issues had more to do with the Lobos than the Wolverines’ talent, including some of the lapses in protection.

“It wasn’t that they defeated a blocker, we countered it wrong,” he said. “And now they’re hitting (Layne) untouched and not blocked, when they should’ve been blocked.

“That’s stuff that can get you beat against anybody on your schedule, let alone against a team like Michigan.”

Of the linemen surveyed, all agreed the mistakes in protection were fixable, with most citing lapses in communication. Right guard and team captain Richard Pearce said they’re “issues that you’d rather have,” but stressed the need to get better quickly.

“Game one is always going to be a few more mental errors than you want,” he added, “but the best teams make those corrections between game one and game two. And we want to do that.”

Michigan was also the first time this offensive line took the field together for a game — in a stadium that seats 107,601, no less. Left guard Israel Mukwiza felt that atmosphere played a role in regular season-opener “jitters” and problems relaying the right protection in some instances.

“Everybody (needs) to be on the same page,” he said. “It’s kinda loud and big — once, I got the call and others didn’t. So I feel like we just got to be more communicative.”

To Malik Aliane, any issues in protection were more related to focusing on the call than communication, or a lack thereof. For instance, when Barham blitzed on the backside of a protection, the offensive line needed to make sure “everybody” got back there in accordance with the call.

Aliane believes this week of practice has helped.

“We have a sense of pride, where now we wanna put on a clinic,” he said, “so that people stop thinking that we’re the weak link of this team. Because we’re not the weak link.”

And if he felt most of the hits were on the offensive line, Eck said there were a few Layne had to own: “Sometimes, when you get hit a lot, you start looking at the rush,” he added. “The second-to-last sack of the game … it was a free rusher.

“That was one where we didn’t have enough guys (to block) and should have thrown (a hot route, a quick designed to combat a blitz) to (tight end Dorian Thomas), and then we could have got a first down on it.”

At the end of the day, everybody knows Layne can take a hit or two.

They just don’t want to see it — especially this weekend.

“(We don’t want to give up) a single hit on the quarterback, no sacks, not even getting touched,” Robnett said. “No hits on the quarterback at all.”