Box Score | 2017 Season Statistics
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It was nearly the greatest comeback in Lobo football history.
Nearly.
Down 30-5 in the fourth quarter, New Mexico, behind backup redshirt freshman quarterback Tevaka Tuioti, went on a furious rally, but it fell just short as a potential tying 2-point conversion was knocked away and New Mexico State escaped with a 30-28 win in front of 32,427 fans, the largest home crowd for the Lobos since the 2009 Rio Grande Rivalry matchup.
After entering the fourth quarter down 30-5, the Lobos scored the final 23 points of the game as they found their rhythm late. Backup quarterback Tekava Tuioti spurred the UNM comeback with a five-yard touchdown pass to Chris Davis, but the failed two-point conversion kept the score at 30-11. Two minutes later, Jay Griffin IV ran the ball 61 yards into the end zone, and this time a successful two-point attempt made the score 30-19. The Lobos then cut the lead to eight points on their next possession with a 22-yard field goal. The field goal came about after it looked like Tyrone Owens was going to waltz into the end zone, but he got tripped up by the feet on one of his own linemen.
UNM got the ball back after a three-and-out with 2:38 on the clock needing 80 yards. After an incomplete pass, Tuioti hit Delane Hart-Johnson near midfield. Then Griffin caught a pass to move inside Aggie territory. After a false start, Rafael Hidalgo, seeing his first career action, made a 13-yard catch, and Romell Hordan picked up the first down on third-and-two.
With 1:11 left on the game clock, Tuioti completed a 19-yard touchdown pass to Griffin IV, giving the Lobos a chance to tie with a two-point conversion, but the attempt failed and the Aggies recovered the UNM onside kick to run the clock out.
The Lobos compiled 226 of their total 430 yards of offense in the fourth quarter, and Tuioti threw his first career touchdown pass with 12:42 on the clock before adding another score to finish the night with 151 passing yards.
The Lobos struggled to take care of the ball, finishing the night with four turnovers for the first time since a 40-7 loss to BYU on Nov. 20, 2010. Lamar Jordan failed to find his stride, throwing two interceptions while compiling 103 yards in the air. Jay Griffin IV led the Lobos with 61 yards rushing and 95 receiving, while Chris Davis added another 81 on the ground including his first career touchdown.
On the other side, the NMSU offense compiled 500 total yards of offense, with Tyler Rogers throwing for 401 yards and four scores. Larry Rose III rushed for an additional 99 yards on 21 carries.
UNM received the opening kickoff but the Aggies forced a fumble less than a minute into the first quarter, ending the ensuing possession with a 30-yard touchdown pass to OJ Clark. Jalin Burrell returned a fumble on the extra point attempt to make the score 6-2. The Lobos were forced to punt on their following three drives, while Rogers extended the NMSU lead to 13-2 with an 81-yard pass to Izaiah Lottie.
UNM opened the second quarter with a 23-yard field goal from Jason Sanders. Kyle Rothschiller recovered an NMSU fumble before the Lobos turned the ball back over two plays later, and the Aggies added a field goal to make the score 16-5. Another UNM punt gave the ball back to the Aggies, and Rogers capped off a two-minute drive with a 17-yard pass to Lottie to give NMSU a 23-5 halftime lead.
New Mexico forced the Aggies to punt on their opening possession of the second half, but a Ron Laforce interception three minutes later returned the ball to NMSU. Rogers found Jaleel Scott in the end zone for the only score of the quarter, giving NMSU a 30-5 lead entering the fourth.
The Lobos have a 1-1 record as they travel to face Boise State on Thursday at 6 p.m. in a matchup that will be televised on ESPN.
POST GAME QUOTES
This was the 108th meeting between the two teams.
New Mexico leads 70-33-5
New Mexico leads 42-15-3 in Albuquerque
New Mexico leads 28-18-2 in Las Cruces
New Mexico State has won two straight in the series
New Mexico State has won one straight in Albuquerque
Starting lineup changes for UNM from published two-deep
Offense: RB Daryl Chestnut started for WR Chris Davis, Jr.
Defense: None
*New Mexico’s captains were Lamar Jordan, Blaise Fountain, Alex Hart and Jake Rothschiller
*Steven Steele was the New Mexico Man for this game, his second career honor
*New Mexico won the toss and elected to receive for the second straight week.
TEAM NOTES:
*New Mexico failed in its attempt to move to 2-0 for the first time since the 2005 season.
*The 32,427 attendance was the largest crowd for a UNM home game since September 29, 2009 when 35,248 came and saw the Lobos and New Mexico State.
*New Mexico nearly completed a comeback from 25 down in the fourth quarter. The largest comeback ever at UNM was 21 points, to Utah on Oct. 19, 2006 and to UTEP on November 23, 1974. The largest 4th quarter comeback in school history was 15 to UTEP on November 19, 1994.
*The 20 completions and 38 attempts were the most in the Bob Davie era. The 38 attempts were the most since attempting 53 against Sam Houston State on September 24, 2011 in the final game of the Mike Locksley era. The 20 completions were the most since October 1, 2011 when UNM completed 22 against New Mexico State, the start of the George Barlow era.
*The 254 passing yards was the most in the Bob Davie era, as UNM threw for 249 against Colorado State on November 16, 2013.
*UNM’s four turnovers were the most in the Bob Davie era. The last time UNM turned it over four times was on November 14, 2009 at BYU.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
*Jalin Burrell returned a fumbled extra point snap for a two-point defensive conversion. It was UNM’s third all-time and the first since Brandon Branch returned a blocked extra point against Arizona State for two points on September 6, 2014.
*Jason Sanders extended his streak of consecutive field goals made to 12 straight with a 23-yarder in the second quarter and a 22-yarder in the fourth.
*Corey Bojorquez hit a 77-yard punt in the second quarter, the sixth-longest in school history.
*A week after a career-high three catches for Chris Davis, he set a new career-high with eight catches for 81 yards and his first career touchdown.
*Jay Griffin IV led the team with 61 yards rushing on one carry (for a touchdown) and with 95 yards receiving (with a touchdown). He is the fifth different leading rusher for UNM in the last five games (Teriyon Gipson, Tyrone Owens, Lamar Jordan, Romell Jordan, Jay Griffin IV). He is the first player to lead UNM in rushing yards and receiving yards in the same game since Teriyon Gipson did it against San José State on October 24, 2015.
*Tevaka Tuioti’s two touchdown tosses were the first two of his career.
*Corey Bojorquez averaged 50.1 yards per punt.
*Elijah Lilly had a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown called back on a holding penalty.
*Jake Rothschiller, who had a forced fumble and an interception last week, had a forced fumble and a fumble recovery this week.
*Jacob Girgle intercepted a pass for the second straight week.POST GAME QUOTES
UNM Coach Bob Davie
Opening Statement:
First it would it would be easy to talk about all the things we didn’t do and the mistakes we made, but I think Doug Martin and his coaching staff and his team deserve a lot of credit. They beat us. Parts of it were we beat ourselves, but they beat us. I give them a lot of credit. I think they have a legitimate chance to win that Sun Belt Conference. I’ve been seeing it coming.
Since we’ve been here I don’t think we’ve turned the ball over four times. We fumbled the ball on the first game of the series, we fumbled on that pitch and then we threw two interceptions. We turned it over four times, which is uncharacteristic of us – but maybe uncharacteristic of us in the past. This is a new team. We certainly leaking some oil against Abilene Christian because that didn’t look like us.
We’ve got a lot of work to do. We have to improve as a team. But I’m pleased that we hung in there under some awful conditions and we were able to mount a comeback. Certainly some young players came in and showed their explosiveness – both our quarterback Tevaka (Tuioti) and (Jay) Griffin (IV). My concern right now is on this football team and how we can improve. It’s that simple. We got to narrow the focus.
On quarterback situation:
Lamar is still our starter. I feel bad for Lamar because he’s worked so hard, but he just looked out of sync from the beginning. But credit to them, you look back to the Arizona State game and they wreaked havoc on them with seven sacks in that game. Lamar was a little jumpy and made a few bad decisions. At some point you have to put the other quarterback in. As I stand here tonight, Lamar is still our quarterback but Tuioti showed what he can do and confirmed what we saw in practice.
On losing to in-state rival:
This one doesn’t sting more – but the first half did sting just because we were so bad. That stung. We just didn’t perform well. There is no sting in losing. There is sting when you don’t play the way you are capable of playing. It’s time for a re-evaluation right now.
On the defense:
I thought our defense hung in there honestly. They were put in a lot of bad positions all night long. I was actually pleased with the way our defense competed. I know that sounds crazy, but I thought it was a tough night and they hung in there and gave us a chance to tie it at the end of the game.
Jacob Girgle, Safety (4 tackles, INT):
On losing to an in-state foe:
Any loss stings, no matter who it’s against. It’s two years in a row and it sucks, but personally I take every loss the same. This one is just as bad as any other one.
On the defense:
We didn’t do as well as we thought we were going to do. That’s on us and we got to work on that. We have to get better, especially facing Boise State on a quick turnaround. But like (Bob Davie) said, it’s probably good we do have a quick turnaround. We’ll be back at it tomorrow (Sunday) and figure out what we did wrong and fix it.
On the second-half defensive effort:
Coach Davie told us to just let it loose. He said go out there in the second half and don’t be timid and play and fire and be the way we need to be. That’s what I think you guys saw in the second half. In the first half as a secondary we made a lot of mistakes and were timid. In the second half we let it loose, jumped the routes and played better. That’s nothing on the coaches. That’s on us the players that we got to fix and improve. I just think we need to bring that in the first and second half now – start the game firing and get off our heels and get on our toes.
Jay Griffin IV, Wide Receiver (5 rec., 95 yards, TD; 1 rush, 61 yards, TD):
On chemistry with fellow redshirt freshman QB Tevaka Tuioti:
We’ve been practicing together for a long time and it was good playing with him. It felt like practice out there. I felt like I was getting in a rhythm and just trying to help my team win.
On building off of second-half effort:
We had a couple of mistakes in the first half, but we couldn’t do anything about that in the second half. We finished strong and we have momentum heading into the next game.
Head Coach Doug Martin:
“This win was huge for our players, it was huge for our program. To win this game two years in a row is a big achievement. They’ve got a really good football team and they have resources we don’t have. We had to have an edge to come up here and win the game and I thought our kids had an edge.”
“We talked to them about playing angry, playing with a chip on their shoulder, I thought they played that way tonight. It wasn’t pretty, we have got to finish better than that, particularly on offense, but we’ve got a pretty good football team if they’ll keep going the way they are right now.”
On making plays at crucial times:
“I didn’t think we handled that very well, particularly at the receiver position. We didn’t play as well in those particular positions as we need to… There are some routine plays that you’ve got to make to keep drives going, to keep the clock running, that we didn’t make.”
On TevaKa Tuioti:
“He’s a good player or he wouldn’t be here. He showed tonight that he’s going to be a good football player.”
“I think what (playing) ASU did last week was it convinced our kids that we could play, particularly our defense. They really took some confidence from that game. I think it’s the first time we played one of those power conference teams that our guys were really disappointed that they didn’t win the game. Had we not won this game tonight, that would have been wasted.”
On Fergurson breaking up the two-point conversion pass:
“That was just huge. That’s making a critical play at a critical time. That’s what winning teams do and it was really great to see us step up and get that done at that point.”
#7 Javahn Fergurson
On breaking up the two-point conversion:
“All game they were throwing those slants, they were doing the quick game all game so I figured once the game was on the line, it was time and they were going to go back to what was working. The whole time, first, second, third quarter they kept getting those quick games so I was like, I’m just going to play it and hope it’s there and it was there.”
“It’s one play at a time. You don’t automatically panic, you don’t go crazy when they score one time. It’s football, especially it’s 2017 and people score. So you can’t go crazy and you can’t get all down about it, but at the same time you have to get your defense back to where you were in the first three quarters. We found a way to get back to where we were for at least the last drive.”
“Every year we try to get better and coach puts us in a position every game to make plays. I feel like this year, and especially the past years, he’s putting players in a position and we’re doing it for him. Coaches can’t play for us. He’s putting us in the right position, he’s doing everything he needs to do. I think now, in 2017, these Aggies, we’re doing what he needs us to do.”
#17 Tyler Rogers
“It was stressful, what a game. The defense held in there, it was an exciting game. It feels good to get the win and that’s all you can ask for.”
“I think offensively, we kind of pulled off the throttle a little bit and wanted to play safe, conservative, and I think that kind of bit us in the butt a little bit. I think we needed to be more aggressive in the second half.”
“We were just taking what the defense gave us. We watched it on film and saw that, we thought we could attack it and we did pretty well. The receivers did a great job doing something after the catch. They’re really athletic and they showed that today.”