New Mexico hired current Maryland coach Mike Locksley in 2009. He, uh, “led” the Lobos to a 2-26 record before being canned part way through the 2011 season; his tenure there made the writers of Days of Our Lives seem unimaginative. He was sued for sexual harassment before he even coached a game (a suit he later settled), he punched an assistant during his first season, he started an argument at a bar with a student reporter he thought was too critical, and finally, his son’s 19-year-old friend borrowed a family car and was arrested for aggravated DWI after almost running someone over. The friend claimed Locksley, whose previous job was as Illinois’s OC, brought him in from Chicago to play for the Lobos; the university said he wasn’t a recruit and had nothing to do with the program. Whatever the truth was, that served as the final straw for New Mexico’s admin. Or perhaps the final straw was the concurrent loss to FCS Sam Houston State that brought them to 0-4 that season. Anyway, to call the Locksley Era “tumultuous” would be an understatement.

Into this chaos stepped Robert Edwin Davie Jr. in 2012. In his first three seasons he led the Lobos to records of 4-8, 3-9, and 4-8; not great, certainly, but when set against three wins in the previous three seasons combined, not terrible either. Then, the halcyon days: New Mexico went 7-6 in 2015, their first winning season since 2007, and 9-4 in 2016, with their first bowl win since 2007 and only the fourth in program history. Davie started to draw some attention as maybe not actually that bad a head coach, and then went 6-17 over the next two seasons. Whoops. The Lobos didn’t do anything well last year, ranking 107th in SP+ offense and 109th in SP+ defense. There aren’t really any reasons for optimism that this year will be different, either; their SP+ season preview projected 3.9 wins. Same as it ever was.

New Mexico at Notre Dame (-34.5)

Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, September 14, 2019
Time: 2:30 PM ET
TV: NBC

When Bobby Petrino and, by extension, Brian VanGorder were fired at Louisville last year, Irish fans found a modicum of solace in knowing that they would only have to wait one game past the opener to enjoy a little schadenfreude. After all, Bob Davie’s New Mexico squad would head to South Bend after the Irish returned from a visit to VanGorder’s former employer. Huzzah! As it happens, that wait will now continue until at least October, assuming VanGorder is still Bowling Green’s DC when they visit. You may be tempted to curse our rotten luck, but… All joking aside, Davie suffered a heart attack after New Mexico’s 39-31 win over FCS Sam Houston State a couple of weeks ago and is on strict rest instructions that preclude him from working or traveling. I’m no fan of his by any means, but obviously life takes precedence over football, with all due respect to Vince Lombardi, and hopefully he recovers soon.

Davie’s infirmity is and likely will remain the most interesting thing about this game. If all goes according to plan, the Irish will get a lead early, throttle the Lobos’ offense, and get a bunch of young guys in for the second half. And nobody will care, except for maybe a handful of people who decry the weak scheduling versus someone like, say, Georgia, who played Murray State last week and will play Arkansas State this week. Not that I’m bitter.

New Mexico’s Offense

You know the old adage to the effect that if you have two quarterbacks, you have none? They moved from an option offense to a pro spread this year and Davie recently announced an intent to play as many as four quarterbacks, which I guess means he has… I don’t know, negative two? To an extent I can understand it as none of those guys has particularly shown anything notable, but the time to throw things against the wall to see what sticks is in practice, not in a high-profile road game. But what do I know?

JUCO transfer Brandt Hughes started the opener and was replaced by Sheriron Jones after hurting his shoulder near halftime. Jones was somewhat less bad but neither was really any good, and news came down yesterday that Hughes is out for this game anyway. Junior Tevaka Tuioti was the odds-on favorite to win the QB1 job before camp, but ended up missing about half of camp due to a family illness; he’s the best runner, but only a 50% passer over 161 career attempts. Redshirt freshman Trae Hall is also in the mix, but probably running behind everyone else.

The Lobos lost their top receiving threat in Delane Hart-Johnson but return their next two guys, Elijah Lilly and Anselem Umeh, who combined to average almost 19 yards per reception. They were relatively quiet against Sam Houston, interestingly, but I would expect to see more of them. Former JUCO transfer and current senior Ahmari Davis was their third running back last season and returns to start this year, after the two guys above him graduated (I assume). He averaged a pedestrian 3.6 yards per carry last year on 51 rushes.

SP+ didn’t think much of New Mexico’s offense last year; they ranked 99th or lower in every major offensive metric. They weren’t efficient, they weren’t explosive, they were bad on standard downs, they were bad on passing downs. They were 24th in adjusted pace, interestingly, although all that really means is that they did bad things faster than most teams.

New Mexico’s Defense

The picture is bleaker on defense, believe it or not. The Lobos lost their top eight tacklers from last season, six to exhausted eligibility and two to transfer. One of those transfers, Rhashaun Epting, led the team in sacks and tackles for loss. Their next most disruptive player, Evahelotu Tohi, was suspended from all team activities late last season after he seriously injured a teammate in a fight at a party, and he doesn’t seem to have resurfaced. Davie brought in twelve (!) JUCOs across the defense to shore up depth – three linemen, four linebackers, and five defensive backs. Not a great sign for multiple reasons. To make matters even worse, starting nose tackle and captain Aaron Blackwell tore his ACL in the opener and will miss the rest of the season.

Like the offense, they were bad at everything last year. SP+ had them ranked in the triple digits in preventing efficiency, preventing explosiveness, rushing defense, passing defense, standard down defense, passing down defense, overall havoc rate, and front seven havoc rate. They ranked a not-horrific 73rd in DB havoc rate, but that’s a wafer-thin silver lining wrapped around a rather sizable poop sandwich. With so many key personnel losses, it’s hard to see them improving on any of those measures this year. If Notre Dame can’t find success in all aspects on offense in this one, it’s officially time to start worrying.

Prediction

Bob Davie will turn 65 in a few weeks. He will very likely post his sixth losing season in eight chances at New Mexico. I get the sense – pure conjecture on my part, I should note – that the mounting losses, concerns about (charitably) anachronistic attitudes, and now health issues may lead to a “mutual parting” with retirement as a convenient excuse for both sides to move on. The program may have to scrape for the cash to buy Davie out of the remaining $1.6M of his contract after this season, but losing costs money too. He enters this season with a 0.379 win percentage in Albuquerque, and it will likely be lower at the end of this year; there comes a time to pull the plug, and I think everyone in and around New Mexico knows that time is coming soon.

That kind of cloud can definitely affect a team’s performance, as Notre Dame fans know all too well. I’m sure the Lobos will come out fired up, perhaps even with a “Win one for Coach” mindset, but they’re just far too short on talent to be competitive in this game. “Win one for Coach” can change pretty quickly to “Let’s get out of here,” and I think we’ll see that relatively early on Saturday. Maybe their new hybrid spread offense (Davie’s term) might make it interesting early, but I doubt it; not only is there the talent gap issue, but their quarterbacks just aren’t very good. Their already thin defensive line is thinner without Blackwell, and they weren’t that good at stopping anyone when they were at full strength anyway.

Irish fans haven’t seen their team cover a five-touchdown spread very often. If there’s any game to do it, though, I think this might be the one; I just can’t see the New Mexico offense finding enough headway even in garbage time. As long as the Notre Dame staff doesn’t see this game as an opportunity to experiment – please, guys, don’t be dumb enough to do that again – I think the cover is very much in play.

On the Irish side, there are a few key questions I have going into the game:

  • Will Ian Book find comfort in the pocket? Maybe it was just first-game jitters, but if Clemson broke something in Book and being this jumpy is his new norm, it’s going to be a very long plane ride back from Athens. Book can’t quell all the concerns about his Louisville performance this Saturday, but he can turn the volume down with a commanding performance. Hopefully he’ll display improved pocket presence, more patience with his reads, and the ball placement that was such a trademark for him last year.
  • How will Chip Long attack the run game? The loss of Jafar Armstrong early against Louisville was a huge blow; the much-ballyhooed two-back sets we saw in camp went away as soon as Armstrong went down. The staff loves Kyren Williams and, as Pete Sampson and Matt Fortuna covered on their recent Athletic podcast, meant to give him more chances against Louisville. I’m curious to see if he really plays a bigger role against New Mexico, if C’Bo Flemister adds anything, and if Avery Davis is anything more than a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency guy. I think Tony Jones gets too much heat, but even so I’ll admit he’s not a guy who should be the feature back for an explosive offense.
  • Will the defense have to settle in again? I was tempted to focus this question on the youngsters, but it wasn’t just them – early on against the Cardinals, Alohi Gilman overpursued, Julian Okwara and Khalid Kareem had critical offsides penalties, Troy Pride was indecisive in run support, etc. I suspect that was a combination of a weird time slot for the game, being wound a little tight for the opener, and being a bit surprised by Louisville’s offensive wrinkles on the first two drives. New Mexico doesn’t have the athletes Louisville does, so it’s not a 1:1 comparison by any means, but shutting them down from the jump would be comforting.

Notre Dame 45

New Mexico 9

Look, a Lobo is a vicious animal, OK? Probably. Well, maybe not. The Irish offense will do whatever it wants, the staff will get Jon Doerer a field goal attempt before heading to Athens, and the defense will be effective early and often. Irish to cover, barely.