UNM football notebook: If the Mountain West is ‘wide open,' is one game enough to recalibrate expectations for the Lobos?

Notes, quotes and observations from New Mexico’s 34-17 loss to No. 14 Michigan:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — College football is back. Did somebody tell the Mountain West?

An attempt at putting the league’s less-than-inspiring 6-6 week in tiers:

The good

Fresno State 42, Georgia Southern 14: A strong bounce-back for the Bulldogs after getting trounced by Kansas in Week 0. This would’ve been a good win by any margin – the Eagles are expected to be in the mix for a Sun Belt title – but rattling off 29 unanswered points after trailing 14-13 at the break? That’s the good stuff right there.

Utah State 28, UTEP 16: Bronco Mendenhall is 1-0 with the Aggies, and a Week 3 matchup against Air Force gained a little more intrigue in the process.

UNLV 38, Sam Houston State 21: That’s 38 points for a second week in a row and a better outing from the Rebels' defense. It doesn’t look like the Bearkats (0-2) will be making a run at a Conference USA title, but UNLV is 2-0 ahead of hosting a UCLA team that just got whipped by Utah. That’s about as on schedule for a year one as it gets.

San Diego State 42, Stony Brook 0: A comfortable shutout win will play anywhere, against anybody.

Air Force 49, Bucknell 13: Last season, the Falcons ran for 166 yards (three yards per attempt) and passed for 71 on their FCS opponent, Merrimack, in a 21-6 win. This year, they rushed for 267 (5.2 yards per attempt) and passed for 159. Air Force will have to navigate a brutal schedule to contend for the league, but the offense looks like it’s back.

Washington 37, Colorado State 28: A wickedly competitive, if flawed, showing from the Rams.

The bad

Wyoming 10, Akron 0: Directly on the line between good and bad. Yes, the Cowboys’ defense looks like it might have the makings of a traditional (i.e. good) Wyoming defense. But the offense that was expected to take a step forward wasn’t quite in midseason form.

No. 2 Penn State 46, Nevada 11: The Wolf Pack got beat soundly as 42-point underdogs, but came alive to cover late against a team that very well could be No. 1 in the polls come Tuesday. There’s a saying about good teams and great teams, and for at least this week, Nevada falls squarely in the latter camp on this one.

Arizona 40, Hawaii 6: Quarterback Micah Alejado has now lost half as many games as he’s won as the Rainbow Warriors’ starter.

The ugly

Central Michigan 16, San Jose State 14: A massively disappointing loss for the Spartans, no two ways around it. Plenty of time (and opportunities) to right the ship, but SJSU is staring at an unexpected 0-2 start with Texas up next.

South Florida 34, No. 25 Boise State 7: The Broncos will not have a number next to their name entering next weekend. They might not at any other point this year, too.

And then there’s UNM.

Tuesday, head coach Jason Eck was correct in saying a loss to No. 14 Michigan wouldn’t hurt any of the Lobos’ goals – if anything, they had more to gain than the Wolverines. Nobody would be disappointed if they fell as 34-point underdogs. And a loss wouldn’t prevent them from winning more conference games than they did last year.

The pressure, he said, was off.

“We got nothing to lose,” Eck said Tuesday.

Saturday, UNM lost, and might as well have won – a major moral victory maybe not for the team, but certainly for fans. After all, the Lobos hung tough in a game nobody expected them to be in. They bounced back from an early 17-0 deficit. Continued to bring the fight in the second half.

It was a wholly pleasant surprise in a week where there were more negative ones for the Mountain West. Last year, the league was essentially Boise State, UNLV and everybody else. There was a clear first, a clear second and a very congested pack fighting over themselves behind them.

This year? If the early going is any sign, that won’t be the case.

And if the early going holds, UNM might be looking at a more interesting season than not.

Which begs the question: Have the Lobos shown enough to recalibrate expectations entering league play?

“I think the Mountain West is wide open this year,” linebacker Jaxton Eck said Saturday, “but we got to keep getting better.”

“I don’t think we have a dominant, dominant team that’s just so much better than everybody (else) in our conference, like Boise was undefeated in our conference last year,” head coach Jason Eck said Saturday. “That gives (us) something to be excited about today – why not us get a lot better and be in the mix?”

But: “We can’t think we’re God’s gift to football,” Eck added, “because we didn’t lose by 40 to Michigan.”

Layne’s long night

The official stats from Saturday’s game had quarterback Jack Layne taking seven hits, while Pro Football Focus (PFF) had him at six; no numbers from Saturday’s game feel as misleading as these.

That’s because, at least to anybody watching, it was clear Layne took a pounding in a way no UNM quarterback has in recent memory: the Idaho transfer completed 3 of 13 passes for 26 yards under pressure, per PFF, weathering one of the more physically brutal games for any quarterback in Week One.

“He’s a warrior,” tight end Dorian Thomas said. “He’s standing in the pocket, delivering balls. I wouldn’t be up here right now if it wasn’t for No. 2.”

“He’s a hell of a competitor,” Jaxton Eck said. “He probably took like 30-plus hits tonight. But I talked to him after – he said he’s healthy.”

Was the onslaught on Layne more of a testament to Michigan’s personnel? Or did UNM have real issues protecting him?

"Both,” Eck said. “They got really good personnel — we won't see many rushers like No. 8, (defensive end) Derrick Moore. We ain't gonna see another guy like him all year.

"But we gotta get better. We gotta protect the quarterback better. We gotta have a little bit more urgency. And really, that's not the way we wanna play. You know, we had 16 tailback runs and we threw it 47 times – that's not gonna be our recipe for success."

On that note: UNM averaged just 1.8 yards per rush.

The Bounce at the Big House?

If they would’ve won, the Lobos’ fake-quarterback-sneak-turned-touchdown-pass would’ve been remembered for a long, long time. Maybe it would’ve had a name: the Bounce at the Big House?

It is still worth noting as the first trick play (and there will be more) of the Eck era that really connected, though. For those that didn’t see: the Lobos lined up in a tight formation with quarterback James Laubstein under center and running back D.J. McKinney in the backfield on fourth-and-1, apparently angling for the sneak.

UNM then snapped the ball through Laubstein’s legs, bouncing it off the ground and into the hands of McKinney – who threw a touchdown pass to a wide-open Thomas.

“My first college start, I get to score off (a pass) from one of my best friends from the team – that don’t even play quarterback?” the Arizona transfer tight end said. “I mean, that’s crazy.”

The last time Eck ran this play? 2021, when he was the offensive coordinator at South Dakota State faced with a fourth-and-1 in the red zone against rival North Dakota State.

South Dakota State won, 27-19.

“It’s a lot more fun to run that play when you win,” Eck said.

Coaching debuts

Game one in the Eck era is in the books. A look back at some other UNM football coaches’ debuts:

-Bronco Mendenhall: Montana State 35, New Mexico 31 (Aug. 26, 2024)

-Danny Gonzales: San Jose State 38, New Mexico 21 (Oct. 31, 2020)

-Bob Davie: New Mexico 66, Southern University 21 (Sept. 1, 2020)

-Mike Locksley: Texas A&M 41, New Mexico 6 (Sept. 5, 2009)

-Rocky Long: New Mexico 38, Idaho State 9 (Sept. 5, 1998)

-Dennis Franchione: New Mexico 24, TCU 7 (Sept. 5, 1992)

-Mike Sheppard: Utah 24, New Mexico 20 (Sept. 5, 1987)

-Joe Lee Dunn: New Mexico 17, Utah 7 (Sept. 3, 1983)

-Joe Morrison: New Mexico 25, BYU 21 (Sept. 6, 1980)

-Bill Mondt: New Mexico 32, Colorado State 23 (Sept. 14, 1974)

-Rudy Feldman: Colorado State 21, New Mexico 13 (Sept. 14, 1968)

-Bill Weeks: New Mexico 77, University of Mexico 6 (Sept. 17, 1960)

Freshman phenom?

The main storyline entering Saturday’s game was the debut of Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood, the former No. 1 recruit in the country. His final line? 21-for-31 passing (68%) for 251 yards and one touchdown with two rushes for -5 yards.

Eck said Underwood was “awesome,” adding he was impressed enough to compliment him after the game for a 39-yard completion to wide receiver Channing Goodwin on third-and-14 in the second quarter.

"Third-and-14, (you) feel pretty good,” Eck laughed. “Third-and-14, (he) does a good job sitting in the pocket, he didn't turn it over at all. That was our hope, that you could maybe get a young quarterback frazzled and (he would) throw it over.

"But he's very accurate. I was just watching him a lot during warmups just throwing routes on air, I mean, every ball was on the money. I was hoping maybe, you know, getting people around him and changing coverages, we'd throw him off a little bit. But he was very impressive.

" ... Maybe I'll be telling my grandkids one day that I got to coach against Bryce Underwood."

Snap counts

UNM’s offensive snap counts via PFF:

-OL Kaden Robnett (82)

-OL Richard Pearce (82)

-WR Keagan Johnson (79)

-WR Zhaiel Smith (74)

-OL Tyler Lawrence (73)

-OL Malik Aliane (65)

-WR Michael Buckley (58)

-OL Israel Mukwiza (54)

-TE Cade Keith (46)

-TE Dorian Thomas (46)

-OL Isaiah Sillemon (29)

-OL Tevin Shaw (26)

-RB Scottre Humphrey (25)

-RB Damon Bankston (24)

-RB Deshaun Buchanan (22)

-TE Simon Mapa (17)

-RB D.J. McKinney (16)

-RB Aiden Valdez (2)

In the interest of transparency: Layne and Laubstein aren’t listed here because PFF had the former listed as taking all 82 snaps and the latter taking all of zero snaps – which simply wasn’t the case Saturday.

UNM’s defensive snap counts:

-LB Jaxton Eck (62)

-DE Keyshawn James-Newby (57)

-CB Abraham Williams (51)

-S Tavian Combs (51)

-DE Brett Karhu (50)

-S Austin Brawley (47)

-S Caleb Coleman (47)

-DL Gabriel Lopez (46)

-CB Jon Johnson (39)

-LB Ky’Won McCray (38)

-DL Brian Booker (33)

-DE Xavier Slayton (32)

-LB Dimitri Johnson (24)

-CB Jayden Sheridan (21)

-DL Okiki Olorunfunmi (19)

-CB Frankie Edwards III (17)

-S Drew Speech (17)

-S Albert Nunes (17)

-S C.J. Johnson (13)

-DL Jalen McIver (10)

-DE Elijah Brody (9)

-S David Murphy (4)

During camp, Eck said he could see UNM using as many as 13 players in the secondary against Michigan. He wasn’t far off: the Lobos ran out 11 defensive backs, with cornerback Williams and safety Combs each picking up 51 snaps to lead the secondary.

That Combs (a team-high seven tackles) played as much as he did should be encouraging. Eck has said in the past they’d like to get him in at boundary safety as much as they could, but it felt like that number might be more like 25-35 snaps per game. That he notched 50-plus right out of the gate is a testament to how far he's come in the last year.

Notes and quotes

-Few individual stats drew as much attention as UNM’s one penalty for five yards Saturday night. Of course, that’s because UNM finished at the bottom of the country the last two years in penalties per game, racking up an astonishing 9.3 and 9.9 flags per game in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

Is Saturday’s a small sample size? Yes.

Should it still be considered a step in the right direction? Also yes.

"Penalties are coaching,” Eck said. “You do a good job coaching and instilling discipline in your players, your players are going to be disciplined."

That said, even Eck admitted there was at least one play the Lobos probably got lucky to not get a call on: "I thought we got a little chippy,” he said. “They got a little chippy, and the refs did a good job of officiating it well and not, you know, calling any 15-yard penalties.

“But I thought sometimes we were on the edge … And again, that's stuff that we really emphasize: we can't have the Lobos beat the Lobos.”

-As UNM went down 17-0 early, Eck said he thought his team got a little “rattled,” a product of the atmosphere (110,648 were in attendance Saturday) and the speed of the game.

“It’s tough to simulate that in practice with the scout team,” he said. “I warned the team on Thursday (and said), ‘you gotta settle in.’ Because sometimes you see teams like this, like an underdog come in, and you just lose it in five minutes.”

There was something else affecting that early hole: Jaxton Eck said he struggled early to hear coach-to-player communications in his helmet, particularly on Michigan running back Justice Haynes’ second touchdown in the first quarter.

“It was like, fuzzy,” he said. “Couldn’t really hear anything. So I think we were struggling to just get lined up and it’s tough when you’re not in the call and able to all execute together.”

Eck said UNM had issues because they normally set up CoachComm – their coach-to-player communication equipment – near the 50-yard-line. But with the tunnel behind the visiting sideline at Michigan Stadium, that wasn't possible.

"We gotta get that fixed," he added. "We gotta get extenders or something, but we had problems ... We put the kids in bad positions and that stuff, we gotta improve. And, you know, if we don't have that (available), we gotta get things signaled in and we got to work through them."

-The game gave it away, but Daniel Hughes is UNM’s starting punter, Eck confirmed. The 27-year-old City College of San Francisco transfer averaged 47.8 yards per punt.