Wright: If this is goodbye to the Rams, at least it’s a winning one for UNM

If a college football rivalry that began 90 years ago is ever to be resumed, one might think that ball is (to mix our metaphors) in Colorado State’s court.

After the New Mexico Lobos’ 20-17 victory over CSU on Saturday at University Stadium, you’d think it’s the Rams who’d want a chance to snap UNM’s one-game win streak in the series.

Or maybe it should be UNM’s initiative, having snapped a 13-game losing streak against the Rams and hungry for more.

Sad to say, it’s not happening anytime soon.

If ever.

Saturday’s game was the last between the two schools as members of the Mountain West conference. Colorado State is one of five current Mountain West schools who are joining a re-jiggered Pacific Coast conference next fall.

So, no, the Lobos won’t be playing Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State or Utah State next season, either. But even Utah State (32 games vs. UNM) has nowhere near the history with the Lobos that CSU does

Saturday was the Lobos’ and Rams’ 71st meeting. The Lobos trail in the series 46-25, and it appears fairly certain UNM will never catch up.

After Saturday’s game, UNM Athletic Director Fernando Lovo was asked about the possibility of getting Colorado State on the Lobos’ nonconference schedule.

“Problematic” is probably the most apt description. Through the end of the decade, the dance card is full.

“We need a guarantee game (like Michigan and UCLA this season) in ‘28 and another one in ‘29,” Lovo said. “So (otherwise) we’ve got our schedule.”

He’s not saying never.

“I think we need to be open to everything,” he said. “… There’s regional rivalries that are dying, obviously, with all the transition and the conference realignment.”

Basketball offers more realistic options, and Lovo was far more optimistic on that front.

But we’re talking football here.

If this is the last Lobos-Rams football game, one might have hoped for a more artistic finale. The Lobos fumbled five times and lost four; the Rams lost one fumble and threw three interceptions.

Coach Jason Eck will take the win, and so will the 27,526 fans — UNM’s largest November home crowd since 2008 — who watched New Mexico (7-3, 4-2 Mountain West) secure its first winning season since 2016.

Only one UNM football coach, Gwinn Henry in 1934, has won eight games in his first season. Eck has a chance to make it eight, perhaps nine.

And yes, for the Lobo faithful, it must have felt good to beat Colorado State for the first time since 2009.

In Eck’s postgame interview, milestones took precedence over the impending end of a historic rivalry.

More important still: a win, any win.

“The glass half-full,” he said of his team’s uneven performance against a struggling (2-8, 1-5) Colorado State team, “is that we showed we can find a way to win when we don’t play our best. That’s what good teams do.”

If anyone out there is gloating that the Lobos got the last word in the series against a school that deserted them, don’t forget that UNM deserted CSU when it left the Skyline Conference for the Western Athletic Conference in 1962. Colorado State wasn’t invited to join the WAC until 1968.

Besides, UNM’s performance on Saturday was not a cause for gloating.

At Tuesday’s weekly UNM sports news conference, Eck was asked if he was concerned about complacency as the Lobos, coming off a bye week, prepared to face a 2-7 Colorado State team. Complacency, he speculated, had been a problem since cavemen roamed the earth in search of elk for food.

Too much elk meat in the cave, he said, might well have sated our hairy forebears’ hunger for more.

Judging from Saturday’s scoreless first quarter, one might have thought caveman syndrome had infected the UNM offense. Where was the explosive attack that had generated 74 points and 939 total yards in victories over Utah State and UNLV?

Things got better, at least when UNM wasn’t fumbling the ball away.

“We have to protect the ball better,” Eck said. “… I thought we payed poorly on offense.”

Eck praised the effort of his defense, which held CSU to 13 yards rushing. One of the Rams’ touchdowns came on a drive of 7 yards, set up by a Scottre Humphrey fumble. The other came late, trimming a seemingly safe 10-point UNM lead to three, when the Rams burned a Lobo safety blitz with a 41-yard touchdown pass. The Lobos then bled 4 minutes, 56 seconds off the clock before turning the ball back to the Rams — out of timeouts — with just 13 seconds left. Game over.

So, sayonara, CSU? Only a bowl game — both teams being eligible — could put Lobos and Rams on the same field in the foreseeable future.

One can hope.