Lobos Pack: Boise State game takeaways

The Lobos fell on Friday night to the Boise State Broncos by a final of 31-14. With the loss, UNM is now 1-1 on the season and 0-1 in the Mountain West Conference. Below are the takeaways.

Positives:

The defense played extremely well once again. A week after allowing just 118 yards of offense and zero points to the Maine Black Bears, the Lobos defense stifled the BSU offense for much of the contest.

New Mexico held Boise State to 318 yards of offense, and picked off Hank Bachmeier once during the contest, while giving up just 15 first downs. The Lobos also held the Broncos scoreless in the first and third quarters.

However, without much of an offense, the defense finally wore down in the fourth quarter and Boise State flexed their offensive strength into two touchdowns to put the Lobos away.

New Mexico is not going to face the caliber of a Boise State team in this week’s contest with UTEP, but the consistency of the defense is a real bright spot for this team.

Negatives:

There was absolutely no protection for Miles Kendrick all night, and that costed the Lobos on both sides of the ball.

Kendrick ended 9-for-28 for 98 yards and a touchdown. Many of Kendricks’ incompletions were him throwing the ball away under pressure. That, and a lack of a running game, left the Lobos defense on the field more than they wanted to be and then in the fourth quarter, the defense could no longer hold on.

The Lobos really need to get a running game going early in contests to open up the passing game. New Mexico saw Oregon State chop up the BSU defense with deep passes and thought they could exploit that too. Much of the deep shots by the Lobos fell short or were just overthrown. The gameplan of deep shots didn’t really materialize and they should stick to the short passing game that worked well against Maine.

Looking Ahead:

The Lobos will square off with UTEP in a renewal of a long running rivalry that was played last season down in El Paso with the Miners winning 20-13.

The Miners come into the contest at 1-2 on the season, coming off a win over New Mexico State on Saturday.

Kickoff is slated for 6:00 p.m. on Saturday night in Albuquerque. The game will be streamed online on the Mountain West Network.