Top New Mexico sports stories of 2025 (non-prep)

What a year.

While my colleague James Yodice will be handling the high school-specific stories of 2025, here is this year's Albuquerque Journal top (non-prep) sports stories of 2025 as determined by collaboration within the department.

1. New Mexico football

A funny thing happened to the program college football left for dead.

The fool's gold injection of hope from the 2024 Bronco Mendenhall year — a losing season with relatively poor attendance that still somehow had people optimistic about the future — was dashed when the coach, star quarterback and hidden gem of an offensive coordinator all left town for bigger paydays.

Jason Eck — a former offensive lineman from Wisconsin who plugged away building winning FCS-level programs — came to Albuquerque and said things fans liked hearing. He and his family were on social media, talking not just to fans, but with fans. The Ecks didn't seem to know any other way to live in a community than to be part of it.

Coach Eck ran trick plays, went for it on fourth down and drove lowriders around town.

He talked about a championship culture at a place that, well, doesn't exactly win championships.

The new-look Lobos — who lost more players in the offseason than just about any other FBS school — won nine games (most since 2016) and finished in a tie for first place in the Mountain West. UNM destroyed UCLA in the Rose Bowl along the way and played in the Rate Bowl in Phoenix.

He called for big crowds at a place that, well, doesn't exactly get big crowds.

The Lobos led the nation in year-over-year attendance gain, sold out the Sept. 27 game against New Mexico State and had 10,000 fans show up to their bowl game across state lines.

He talked about Albuquerque not being for everyone, just for the "real ones" at a place that, well, hasn't had a history of keeping successful head coaches.

Eck, named Mountain West Coach of the Year, then re-upped with UNM (at least for now) while his name was very much in the conversation for openings around the country.

UNM may not be a "football school," but in 2025, it was most definitely a basketball AND football school.

2. Diego Pavia

Diego Pavia, the prolific yet polarizing quarterback, did things nobody in this state's history has done. 

Whether you like it or not.

The former Volcano Vista and St. Pius wrestling and football star who led New Mexico Military Institute to a junior college football national championship, then led the NMSU Aggies to back-to-back bowl games, then followed several coaches and teammates to Vanderbilt and a solid NIL payday, also etched his name in the college sports history books. That happened in December 2024 when his lawsuit against the NCAA granted him and thousands of other college athletes extra eligibility if they had started their playing careers at the junior college level.

But that was all just the backdrop to 2025, when Pavia became a name that will forever be part of college football lore. In his second season at Vandy, he led the team to unprecedented SEC success, winning the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award,  and finished second in the Heis­man Trophy voting, higher than any other player with ties to New Mexico has ever done.

Of course, it all came with the same brash, unapologetic (well, except for the post-Heisman apology) Pavia persona that makes him great on the field and rubs many the wrong way off it.

3. New Mexico basketball

The decade-long NCAA Tournament drought ended in 2024. But it wasn't until 2025 that the UNM men's basketball team returned to the top. In the 2024-25 season, the Lobos were true regular-season champions in the Mountain West with a team that included the conference's Player of the Year in Donovan Dent, Coach of the Year in Richard Pitino and an NCAA Tournament win over Marquette.

Fundraising at UNM set records and it was 100% driven by the return to glory of Lobo basketball.

Then, it was all gone. Pitino took a job at Xavier, Dent took millions to return to his home-state school (UCLA) and the entire roster and coaching staff moved on.

In the wake, UNM hired one of the hottest names in the 2025 offseason coaching carousel in Eric Olen, who, in taking over one of only three (out of 365) Division I programs without a single player or staff member returning, has led the Lobos to a 10-2 record and a nice No. 68 ranking in KenPom.com by Christmas — almost exactly where they were one year prior (No. 67) when they were back atop that Mountain West.

4. Jon 'Bones' Jones

Considered by many to be the greatest mixed martial artist of all time, Albuquerque's Jon "Bones" Jones had a very Jon "Bones" Jones type of year, forcing his way onto our list despite not having fought once in 2025.

The sport's GOAT, having just concluded yet another "this win cements his legacy" sort of victory over Stipe Miocic in Madison Square Garden in November 2024, coasted through the first six months of 2025 toying with fight fans about whether he'd ever even take a fight with the latest challenger to his throne, Tom Aspinall.

Then, on June 21, UFC President Dana White announced that Jones had informed him of his retirement, a shocking announcement in the timing and the nature in which it was revealed.

The Journal checked court and police records to see if anything was amiss with the legendary fighter who had well-documented legal issues, only to find Albuquerque Police had just that week filed court documents charging Jones with leaving the scene of a February car crash and threatening a public safety aide.

Police video and court documents made the rounds, Jones laughed off the accusations, and eventually the charges were, in fact, dropped.

And now? Well, you know how fighters are with retirements. Jones is now making an all-out push to be on the June 2026 UFC fight card at the White House. Jones says it would be his ultimate honor to fight in front of President Donald Trump, whom Jones celebrated with after his win over Miocic.

5. UNM track and field/cross country

Quietly, UNM cross country and track and field have grown into two of the country's elite college sports programs.

In 2025, the program that made wearing turquoise at UNM cool again, won more conference and national titles to elevate what was already one of the state's all-time great college athletics success stories.

• Pamela Kosgei pulled off the rare distance double in June, winning the women's 5,000- and 10,000-meters at the NCAA Outdoor Championships before returning to help lead the women's cross country team to a fourth-place finish in November at the NCAA Championships. She was one of three women honored as a finalist for The Bowerman, the sport's highest accolade.
• Habtom Samuel (finally!) won his first NCAA Cross Country National Championship after having twice finished second and in June he finished second in both the men's 5,000m and 10,000m runs at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
• Ishmael Kipkurui won the men's 10,000m at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in June, a few months after setting an NCAA record in the event at 26:50.21. He then turned pro, joining the elite Nike track team.
• UNM was the only non-power conference school in the country with men's and women's track and field teams to finish in the top 10 at the 2025 NCAA Outdoor Championships in June.
• UNM was the only school in the country with both men's and women's cross country teams to have top five finishes at the 2025 NCAA Cross Country Championships in November.

Honorable mentions:

Lovo: There is no question UNM athletics had an amazing year under the first-year Athletics Director Fernando Lovo. Basketball led the charge on fundraising gains, football led the charge on renewed optimism and hope for the future, track and cross country led the charge for UNM's fantastic finish in the Learfield Director's Cup standings. And now, Lovo will sail into the sunset as 2025 comes to a close — he's taking a job at Colorado, to be announced in the final week of the year. However, Lovo leaves the department in a good spot, even as it transitions into a new-look Mountain West conference.

New Mexico United: More great attendance, more ground gained (albeit still not broken) on a new stadium and the best-ever finish in the playoffs (semifinals) in 2025, under first-year head coach Dennis Sanchez.

New Mexico State University: The year started with the ouster of longtime Athletics Director Mario Moccia and ended with his suing the university for that decision. In between, the Aggies were led for much of the year by interim Amber Burdge and now by new AD Joe Fields, all while sifting through lawsuits and wrongful termination messes from the previous years.

Our other pro sports: The Albuquerque Isotopes again led the Pacific Coast League in attendance, despite another losing season. Former 'Topes manager Warren Schaeffer became the franchise's first-ever former manager to land a Big League manager's job with the Colorado Rockies, Albuquerque's own Jordan Pacheco went from the 'Topes to the Rockies as a hitting coach, and longtime Isotopes slugger Sam Hilliard became Albuquerque's all-time professional baseball home run king. There was also the emergence of a new pro hockey team in Rio Rancho (all hail the Goatheads!) to start play next season and news that indoor football will return to Tingley Coliseum in 2026 with the Duke City Gladiators rebranded as the New Mexico Chupacabras.

Albuquerque is still a fight town! Multiple-time world champion Holly Holm made her triumphant return to boxing, and there's still no end in sight for her fight career. Her Jackson-Wink teammate Steve "Mean Machine" Garcia, also from Albuquerque, extended his UFC featherweight win streak to seven, including six by knockout. Angelo Leo retained his International Boxing Federation featherweight title in May with a majority- decision win over Tomoki Kameda in Osaka, Japan.

New Mexico's Non-DIs: New Mexico Highlands running back Jeffery Jones was a Division II All-American, set the D-II single-game freshman rushing record (385 yards), as well as NMHU's season rushing record (1,722) and led the country in yards per carry (10.8), all before entering the transfer portal after the season. At New Mexico Junior college, the men's track team finished second and women's team third at the 2025 NJCAA Outdoor Championships with a total of 29 All-America performances and five individual national champions — LeBron James, men's javelin; Samuel Ospina, men's pole vault; Jonathan Da Silva, men's decathlon; Tania Da Silva, women's hammer; and Tiana Petrova, women's high jump. 

You can reach Geoff at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.