The last time the UNM beat Colorado State was in 2009, a span of time that spanned a dozen years and 10 straight losses.
If you went back in time you would find a very different world when the Lobos defeated the Rams the last time. The Mountain West Conference still had BYU, Utah, and TCU as members. Boise State wouldn’t join the league for another two years, while Fresno State, Utah State, Nevada, and San Jose State were still a few years away.
Rocky Long had just left UNM and given the reins to Mike Locksley. One of Locksley’s three wins during his miserable tenure as Lobos was a 29:27 win over Colorado State in the penultimate game of the 2009 season.
The CSU has undergone a massive overhaul and rebuilt a program that includes building a new stadium on campus, which has demonstrated the school’s commitment to football.
While current UNM coach Danny Gonzales doesn’t use Colorado State as a measure of where he wants his program to be – which he often does when talking about the state of San Diego – he does use the Rams as a motivational tool for his players.
“We lost 10 games in a row to these guys,” he said earlier this week. “And our boys will hear about it all week.”
The Lobos and Rams should open the 2020 season against each other before COVID-19 concerns forced the game to be canceled. It would have been the first game in the Gonzales era and just like this week he used the skid against the CSU to remind his team that losing 10 games in a row against someone is unacceptable.
The Lobos (2-4 total, 0-2 MWC) have lost four straight times, outperforming 69-17 in conference losses to the Air Force and the state of San Diego. Colorado State (2-3, 1-0) is the leader of the Mountain Division in MWC and, despite losing three players to the FCS program, earned South Dakota State with a 10-point loss in Iowa, the No. 2 Rank team this week.
Lobos Notes
Focus: UNM will honor former running back DonTrell Moore during an in-game ceremony on Saturday night. Moore will be the latest Lobo to be included in the team’s ring of honor, which means his name will be featured on the facade of the university stadium’s press box alongside other UNM greats.
Dismissed from Roswell High School, Moore was the highest-rated recruit during Rocky Long’s tenure as head coach. Moore was a research assistant on Long’s staff, and it is the GAs who write most of the correspondence to prospective recruits. All the coaches do is sign them.
“I was a pen pal with DonTrell and he didn’t even know it,” Gonzales said. “I knew every recruiting visit he went to, I knew everyone who recruited him. It was very special for him to choose New Mexico. “
Cut wing: Quarterback Terry Wilson’s non-throwing arm, his left, has restricted his activity throughout the week. Gonzales said all week that it will remain a game-time decision to go with fifth grader or freshman CJ Montes, a Pasadena, Calif. Native, who made his garbage time debut last week after beating San Diego State had lost. If Wilson (left elbow dislocated) is unable to raise his arm and prove he can take a hit, Montes will get the call through Trae Hall and Isaiah Chavez.
Hall, Gonzales said, will stay at the receiver while Chavez, last year’s fifth grader who led the Lobos to their only two wins of the 2020 season, did not train until last week.
He sat out for a month and a half with the symptoms of concussion he’d suffered prior to the Lobos’ season opener.
Gonzales said several times that there is no seeping quarterback controversy that Wilson will be the team’s starter until someone else proves they can do the job better than him.
Aside from a 500 yard effort from Montes, don’t expect any changes to the depth map.
Regardless of who gets the reps, Mannie Logan-Greene, who is most threatened, has a severed sternum that keeps him off the field for at least another week.
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