Head Coach: Jason Eck is entering his first season as the head coach of the Lobos. He comes over after his previous stop as the head coach of Idaho, he took over a fractured program that had been struggling since the move down to FCS and not only did he bring wins on the field he revitalized a fanbase that originally hated the move down. He’s very good at navigating the portal and will bring a lot of fascinating plays with him too.
Program Outlook: It’s been a challenging road for New Mexico football, and overall this is one of the toughest jobs in the country. There’s not a lot of talent nearby and the football program in general tends to take a backseat to basketball. They can’t seem to catch a break either, they made an incredible hire in Bronco Mendenhall who was in it for the long haul only for Utah State, one of the few jobs he would have left New Mexico for, to come open. It’s clear with these aggressive hires and investment in their facilities that New Mexico is trying to get their program back to winning.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: New Mexico ranks 134th in the country returning 30.5% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. They got absolutely raided by the portal. That being said there’s still some things to work with here. Key players starts with an absolutely loaded stable of backs, New Mexico added Scottre Humphrey who was a star at Montana State, former CUSA freshman of the year DJ McKinney (Sam Houston), Damon Bankston (Weber State) and Deshawn Buchanan followed Eck over from Idaho to bring a speed element. Truly this is an embarrassment of riches. At QB Jack Layne is another player who followed Eck, and he played well last year when he was healthy. There’s also James Laubstein who backed up Dampier last year. WR Keegan Johnson (Kansas State) seems set to be the star, and there’s a few other interesting transfers who will help as well. New Mexico had a surprisingly great Oline last year but only one starter is back from that unit. On the defense the Lobos will have a leader in the coaches son Jaxton Eck who had a ridiculous season last year, he will join a great group of linebackers led by Randolph Kpai and Dimitri Johnson. There’s Idaho guys helping up front as well with Keshawn James-Newby and Xavier Slayton. On the inside they have a massive man in Brian Booker (Texas Southern) who is 331lbs! The secondary will also be led by a former Idaho guy! Abraham Williams starred for the Vandals in 2023 both as a corner and returner, he missed a lot of last year hurt. The portal will make up the rest of the unit as well, including proven safety Austin Bawley (Ohio).
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: New Mexico’s schedule is ok, there’s enough rebuilding teams to help but there’s challenges as well. Their non-conference schedule will feature challenges against Michigan and UCLA. There will also be old rivals for Eck in Idaho State who is continuing to improve but Eck handled them well and new rivals for him in New Mexico State in the Rio Grande Rivalry. New Mexico’s Mountain West schedule is tough but also not the worst. They miss Fresno State, Hawaii and Wyoming, and they face Boise State plus UNLV on the road. However, outside of those two tough road games a lot of the other games could be winnable.
Final Thoughts: Losing Bronco Mendenhall was a gut punch, so was losing so many talented players to the portal but I can’t imagine a better way for New Mexico to recover from that. Jason Eck is going to bring a lot of excitement right away, despite his offensive knowledge it’s going to be tough to match the fireworks we saw in Albuquerque last year but I suspect the defense will be better as long as they can improve on 3rd downs. In my last preview I mentioned Nevada was the worst in the country on 3rd down defense, New Mexico was right in front of them (in other words 2nd worst) in that category.
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