New Mexico quarterback Terry Wilson appears to pass in the first quarter of Saturday’s game against Texas A&M at College Station. (AP Photo / Sam Craft) Late Friday night, fans of Texas A&M, known as the 12th Man, gathered at Kyle Field to scream at midnight as they went over game traditions and screams.
Shortly after midnight, an A&M leader reminded fans of the University of New Mexico quarterback Terry Wilson.
The name is known to the Aggies. Three years ago, Wilson Kentucky almost led to a win at Kyle Field, but the Wildcats fell 20-14 in overtime against the Aggies.
The scream leader called into the microphone and said this game was going to get worse and a lot tougher for Wilson.
It turned out he was right.
Wilson threw just 33 yards on the 10-of-23 pass as the seventh-placed Aggies won 34-0 to end the Lobos’ winning streak in four games on Saturday. Texas A&M sacked Wilson four times and took a pass, his first interception of the season.
The Lobos struggled to move the ball and did not get any momentum in attack.
“That doesn’t define our whole season,” said Wilson. “We played (a Southeastern Conference) team. This is a high profile soccer game. It’s a good, solid football team. For us, we’ll just leave that behind and prepare to play UTEP. “
The Lobos (2-1) will try to answer at UTEP on Saturday.
The teams have a common opponent: New Mexico State. The Miners (2-1) defeated NMSU 30-3 at Las Cruces to open the season on August 28th.
The Lobos defeated their rivals on September 11th in Albuquerque 34:25.
WHAT WAS RIGHT: Last year, UNM’s defensive end, Joey Noble, was disappointed to receive the All-Mountain West Conference Honorable Mention rather than the All-MWC First Team Honor. He decided to use it as motivation this season. If he plays the way he did against A&M on Saturday during the MWC season, Noble will be an all-MWC accolade eye-catcher. Noble showed that he can keep up with the Aggies and ended up with four tackles, one sack and one tackle for a loss.
Noble and the Lobo defense rebounded sharply after giving up two touchdowns within the first six minutes of play. UNM allowed only one touchdown and kept the Aggies on two field goals before scoring a TD late in the third quarter when a handful of Lobo players made their first appearances of the season.
UNM improved when it came to penalties. The Lobos had four penalties for 18 yards. The UNM imposed 12 penalties for 112 yards against the NMSU in the previous week.
WHAT WENT WRONG: The UNM’s offensive line fought against A & M’s much-lauded line of defense, which features DeMarvin Leal. He recorded three tackles, 1½ sacks, and 1½ tackles for loss. Wilson didn’t have much time to throw. Running backs Bobby Cole and Aaron Dumas were held at 76 yards, with Dumas leading the way with 49 yards on 10 carries.
UNM made mistakes with special teams, mostly with punt coverage. Aaron Rodriguez had 11 punts for 441 yards (40.1 average yards). One of his punts sailed low and Ainias Smith took him back for 78 yards for an alleged touchdown but was negated by a holding penalty.
Smith had 78 punt return yards on four attempts. He almost broke another punt return for 50 yards, but it was brought back for a 1-yard return after video review showed he was after a tackle from Andrell Barney Jr.
REMARKABLE: UNM had 122 yards total attack. The last time the Lobos failed to record a 200 yard offensive was on November 24, 2018 when the UNM had 83 yards against Wyoming.
HE SAID IT: “If you’re true to yourself, look at you (the shutout loss) and say, if we’d approached this with the belief that we could play with these guys, we would have been a lot more competitive than ‘we were. That’s one of the things we’re changing here. You have to believe and expect to win. I can talk about it, but unless you believe it, it won’t happen. ”- UNM coach Danny Gonzales
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