Oh boy, this is the spicy matchup every Mountain West fan has circled on the calendar. The return of Bronco Mendenhall to New Mexico but at the head of the Utah State Aggies. Lobo faithful have not forgiven Mendenhall for his betrayal in December and there’s nearly a full season building up toward this moment.
This game should be billed as quintessential college football because despite both of these teams not being in the national picture, everything that makes college football great should be present. Passion between fanbases and hard-fought football from players and coaches seeking to prove themselves on the field.
This is the in-depth preseason preview of Utah State’s eighth opponent of the season, the New Mexico Lobos.
Other Opponent Previews
Game Info
- Game Day: Oct. 25
- Location: Merlin Olsen Field (Logan, UT
- Kickoff Time: 1 p.m.
- TV Broadcast: Altitude Sports | Mountain West Network
- Radio Broadcast: KVNU 102.1 FM / 610 AM
Quick-Hit Info on New Mexico
- Head Coach: Jason Eck (1st season at New Mexico)
- 2024 Record: 5-7
- 2024 Offense Rank: 24th (33.5 points per game)
- 2024 Defense Rank: 130th (38.0 points allowed per game)
- Returning Production Rank — 121st
- Returning Starters — (3 offense, 4 defense)
- 2025 Preseason Average Ranking — 122.0
History of Utah State vs this opponent
- All-Time Series: Utah State leads 17-14
- Series During MW Era: Utah State leads 9-3
- First-Ever Meeting: Dec. 1, 1951 (New Mexico won 17-13)
- Most Recent Meeting: Oct. 19, 2014 (New Mexico won 50-45)
Utah State had a seven-game winning streak against the Lobos snapped last year in what was a thrilling football game. The result showcased the recent downhill trend of Utah State, now on three straight losing seasons, and what appeared to be a rising tide for New Mexico which reached its highest win total since 2016 last year. Whether that’s a short blip (similar to when UNM won back-to-back games in this series in 2015-16 which preceded USU’s seven-game win streak) will likely be shown this year.
Opposing Players to Watch
- Jake Layne (QB)
- Scottre Humphrey (RB)
- Keagan Johnson (WR)
- Dimitri Johnson (LB)
- Jaxton Eck (LB)
- Keyshawn James-Newby (EDGE)
- Abraham Williams (CB/KR)
The Lobos in 2024
Last year provided the biggest spark of hope New Mexico fans have had in a while. From 2017 to 2023, the Lobos maxed out at four wins and only did that once in the final season of Danny Gonzales’ tenure. That’s the context required to understand why the 5-7 season under Bronco Mendenhall in 2024 Lobos fans excited for the future. After all, even a mediocre season under a first or second-year coach with a trod-upon program can often herald future success.
The season didn’t start out very hopeful, though. Mendenhall’s coaching debut featured a loss to an FCS team, Montana State. Then it was three straight losses by 17+ points to Arizona, Auburn and Fresno State. The first win came over in-state rival New Mexico State in a high-scoring 50-40 thriller.
And therein lay the formula for New Mexico to win games. Just score so many points that even the terrible defense couldn’t screw things up. New Mexico won three straight games this way, first over NMSU, then a 52-37 win over Air Force and 50-45 over Utah State. The formula didn’t work perfectly, as the Lobos lost a high-scoring game to Wyoming, 49-45, but having the ability to score a ton of points was at least keeping New Mexico in games.
New Mexico’s peak last year was a 38-35 win over No. 19 Washington State. It was the first win by the Lobos against a ranked opponent since 2003. It also meant that with one week to go, they still had a chance to become bowl eligible, something that hadn’t happened in New Mexico in nearly a decade.
Unfortunately for the Lobos, the final week featured disappointment as they lost on the road at Hawaii, 38-30. New Mexico tried to rally from down 28-9, and maybe could have pulled it off with a little more time on the clock, but it wasn’t meant to be.
But the most crushing blow to the football program came after New Mexico’s defeat to Hawaii, when the head coach that had given the program hope, skipped town to return to the Beehive State and coach at USU.
2025 Season Prospects
New head coach Jason Eck is entering a situation where New Mexico fans are suddenly expecting, not just vainly hoping, that the program will exceed two or three wins. The problem is that the team got gutted with the departure of Mendenhall. The Lobos rank in the bottom 15 in returning production and that includes pretty much all of the studs that drove the offense to those high-scoring wins.
Devon Dampier is obviously the biggest loss as the one responsible for nearly 4,000 yards of offense (2,768 passing, 1,166 rushing) along with 31 touchdowns. But also of great note is the loss of another 1,000-yard rusher, running back Eli Sanders, and wide receivers Luke Wyson (69 receptions, 840 yards) and Ryan Davis (54 receptions, 747 yards). Four of the Lobos’ starters on the offensive line are also gone.
On defense things get almost worse. Of the top 15 players in snaps last year, 12 are gone. There’s barely anything left in the cupboards.
So it was Eck’s job this summer to refill those cupboards and to do so he leaned fairly heavily into FCS and JUCO transfers. His quarterback, Jack Layne, followed Eck from Idaho. In 2024, Layne threw for 1,472 yards, completed 65% of his passes and accumulated 14 touchdowns and four interceptions in six games (technically seven appearances, but he didn’t throw a pass in one of those). Pretty solid production that all in New Mexico will hope translates to the FBS level.
At running back, Eck once again went to the FCS, nabbing Montana State star running back Scottre Humphrey. In 2024, Humphrey earned FCS All-American honors after running for 1,386 yards and 16 touchdowns. Incoming wide receiver Kader Diop comes by way of the JUCO ranks and San Diego Mesa CC (38 receptions, 641 yards last year). The offensive line also features two FCS transfers, one from Idaho (Kaden Robnett) and one from Mercer (Isreal Mukwiza). On defense, Eck brought his leading tackler (and son) Jaxton Eck who had 134 tackles and will be joined by Eck’s top sack artist a year ago, Keyshawn James-Newby, who had 10.5 sacks in 2024 for Idaho.
Not all incoming transfers are FCS or JUCO guys. Eck also got a healthy dose of Division I, including Power Four, transfers. A good chunk of those are filling out the pass-catching room, such as wide receiver Keagan Johnson (Kansas State) and tight end Dorian Thomas (Arizona). The Lobos also added P4 transfers on defense with defensive end Darren Agu (Vanderbilt) along with defensive backs CJ Johnson (Auburn) and Clint Stephens (UCLA).
New Mexico’s massive challenge this season is finding a way to build an offense that’s at least somewhat close to the effectiveness it had last year with Dampier while also having a massive turnaround on the defensive side of the ball. If 2025 is just a downgraded version of the 2024 offense with a 2024-caliber defense, the Lobos will go 2-10. Find ways to keep the offensive production up while improving the defense could lead to another season close to (or perhaps even reaching) bowl eligibility.
Spence Nowinsky will be the name to watch for the Lobos. He’s the new defensive coordinator. Mendenhall and his DC, Nick Howell, couldn’t get a one-year turnaround working for New Mexico, but Nowinsky has done some pretty good work at his previous stops. Most recently he flipped Memphis’ defense from ranking 95th in FBS up to 52nd (which included jumping from 79th to 18th in rushing yards per game). Before that he coached the Ohio Bobcats to ranking fourth in FBS in yards allowed per game (and he had similarly great coaching success at Miami of Ohio and Illinois State before that).
If there’s someone you can put your trust in to find a way to get a defense in working shape, it’s Coach Nowinsky. He’s done it time and time again, and at schools with less of a national profile than New Mexico.
The offense doesn’t feel like it has further to go, but replacing Dampier is a monumental task. He was essentially an offense unto himself (again, nearly 4,000 yards of offense came directly through his arms and legs last year). Layne, who appears to be the most likely player to win the right to be Dampier’s successor, does not possess the same dynamic running ability. He ran for 23 yards in all of 2024 (on 25 attempts). That means Layne will be doing quarterbacking the old fashioned way, with his right arm. And that shouldn’t be much of a worry. There are encouraging signs, despite a still relatively small sample size for him as a starter. Stretch his per-game average from 2024 over a presumed fully-healthy 12-game season and it would add up to roughly 3,000 yards, 28 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Those are offensive-player-of-the-year-type numbers.
Combine Layne’s potential as a passer with Humphrey, someone who’s run for nearly 1,400 yards and more than 15 touchdowns in a single season, and there’s every chance the Lobos could pull off a solid one-two punch in the run and pass game.
But all of this comes with the caveat that these players need to be able to make the transition from FCS (or JUCO) and be effective at the FBS level. Averaging 245 passing yards per game at Idaho or rushing for 1,400 yards at Montana State is one thing. Can those guys do it at the Mountain West level? And can they do it behind an offensive line that won’t be one of the best in the conference, or with wide receivers that won’t be as elite relative to the defensive backs they’re going against? After all, those two guys were on FCS playoff teams last year. They were surrounded by the best the subdivision had to offer and New Mexico won’t give the same benefit of being surrounded by the best in their conference or nation.
Preseason Game Prediction — Close win
Bronco Mendenhall has openly admitted he’d rather not go down to New Mexico, but luckily for college football fans at large, he’s not the one that gets to decide that. Utah State will go down to Albuquerque to play the Lobos, but I think it will end up being a good end for Mendenhall and the Aggies. As much as New Mexico wants to believe they’re out of the 2-3 win doghouse, it probable that the Lobos are not going to be at their best this season. And while Utah State may not be in much better of a situation, there’s more stability historically with the Aggies and they’ll have the advantage in head coach (not to rub UNM’s nose in it once again).
