Head Coach: Tony Sanchez is entering his 2nd season as the head coach of the Aggies with a 3-9 record. This is his 2nd head coaching job, previously he was at UNLV for 5 seasons going 20-40 but this was before that program broke through. Sanchez has a lot of ties to the Vegas area which helps recruiting. He enters this year looking to get this program back to winning.
Program Outlook: New Mexico State is based in an area that doesn’t offer much for recruiting, but it does offer nicer weather, mountains in the distance and a national park that is less than an hour away. It is a program that is always special to our program as we always start our College Football game dynasties building this program up. For a couple years Jerry Kill made everyone forget that this was a tough job, and unfortunately the 3 win season in 2024 was a startling reminder that yes it is a challenge to win here, but it’s definitely not impossible!
How does the 2025 Roster look?: New Mexico State ranks 76th in the country returning 52.5% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Key players starts with the QB position, Parker Awad is back but didn’t even complete 50% of his passes last year and Logan Fife comes in from Montana, he proves to be a steady presence. With his accuracy I suspect Fife will win the job and get the passing game going. The Aggies will have a talented group of backs, they got Dijon Stanley from Utah and in the spring benefitted from the Cal RB exodus with Kadarius Calloway coming over. They have a good receiver in PJ Johnson III, while TJ Pride will fill the slot. They’ll have other options that can fill in from the portal, Juco ranks and incoming freshmen. The defense is led by Dakerric Hobbs who is one of the better corners in the conference, he really sets the tone for this aggressive defense. Josiah Charles is a good corner next to him. The linebackers Tyler Martinez and Sone Aupiu are a great combo especially against the run. The question mark will be the rest of the secondary and defensive line, they struggled a lot in both areas and the defensive line in particular was hit hard by the spring portal. Tony Sanchez was very aggressive adding both portal and Juco players to try to address both areas. On offense the question marks will be if any of the transfers at receiver can become a consistent weapon outside of just Johnson there, the offensive line also lost most of their experience from last season.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: New Mexico State has a pretty favorable schedule this year. The Aggies non-conference starts with Bryant who comes all the way from Rhode Island for this game, the Bulldogs really struggled at the FCS level last year going 2-10. New Mexico State then plays Tulsa who is in their first year under a new coach and the Rio Grande Rivalry is a similar matchup to that with New Mexico on their 3rd coach in 3 years. New Mexico State does get a late season “buy game” against Tennessee. The CUSA schedule isn’t the most favorable, the Aggies avoid Jax State but also don’t get FIU or newcomer Delaware. This schedule doesn’t get in the way of a bowl bid.
Final Thoughts: It was tough seeing the Aggies take a step back after the highs of 2022 and 2023 but it wasn’t surprising considering how much they lost. Now the hope is that they get their footing and can work their way back up. Tony Sanchez didn’t like what he saw from the offense last year and they made a mid-season change, now it feels like they made a much more steady hire in Dave Yost who’s been in charge of prolific offenses before. Yost especially focuses on the pass game which had no rhythm last year, I feel good about what the Aggies can do on the ground but a capable pass game with good schemes and less receiver drops (please less receiver drops, it was so rough, we felt the effects of it in College Football 25) this team could reach a bowl game.
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