ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The University of New Mexico hosts Wyoming on Saturday night at 5:02 p.m. Mountain Time in a game broadcast on CBS Sports Network. The game will also be on the Lobo Sports Radio Network with Robert Portnoy and DonTrell Moore. The Lobos come into the game 2-3 and 0-2 in the Mountain West while Wyoming is 3-3 overall and 1-1 in the Mountain West.
The eries between the two teams has been tight the whole time, with Wyoming owning a slim 38-36 lead in the series. The series has seen plenty of successes for UNM, including the last two years in which UNM won 17-16 in Las Vegas in 2020 for the first win of Danny Gonzales’ coaching career. Last year, UNM made it two in a row with a 14-3 win in Laramie, UNM’s only road win in its last 20 outings.
In 2016, UNM rolled up 568 yards of rushing in a 56-38 win over the Cowboys that earned UNM a share of the Mountain Division title. The 568 is the second-most rushing yards in a game in UNM history. Conversely the 1967 Lobo squad had -29 yards against Wyoming in a 42-6 loss, and that’s the second-fewest yards by a Lobo squad. Last year UNM went 10-for-11, a single-game program record for completion percentage, but just four years prior, UNM was picked off five times in a 42-3 loss to the Cowboys. It truly is a series where anything can happen.
Of course is 2003, the Lobos trekked to Laramie, and it was indeed a trek. The squad needed a police escort and plows to get to Laramie with the highways otherwise closed down, and the game ended up as the coldest in UNM history. Temperature for the game, played in a blizzard, was 9 degrees, and it was -5 with the wind chill, and it got colder from there, but UNM won 26-3 to close an 8-4 regular season. The weather is expected to be much better than that on Saturday, with temperatures of 64 degrees and some sun at kickoff. It should be perfect.
The Lobos will have to continue playing well on defense. The Lobos held the UNLV Rebels, who were averaging nearly 40 points a game, to just two touchdowns. The Lobos also turned the Rebels over twice after opponents had turned them over just once in the first four games. UNM also opened a 17-0 lead, getting a pair of touchdowns on the ground from Miles Kendrick, but UNM couldn’t get in the end zone in the second half.
“We just have to play better on both sides of the ball,” said Danny Gonzales. “I mean we were 4-for-13 defensively on third down. That’s pretty good but if we are 2-for-13 they don’t get two touchdowns, so we have to improve.”