ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico’s offense rolled with five more rushing touchdowns, Luke Wysong had his second career punt return touchdown and the Lobos rolled to a second straight win, taking down Air Force 52-37 in a game that marked the first conference win at New Mexico for Bronco Mendenhall.
The Lobos overall rushed for 255 yards with Eli Sanders scoring two touchdowns on the ground, Devon Dampier scoring two and Sol-Jay Maiava-Peters getting one. Sanders scored on a pair of long runs, of 35 and 31 yards as he had a team-best 80 yards on just five carries. The 50 points by UNM in back-to-back games marked the first time UNM had done that is 108 years.
UNM’s only drive in which they didn’t score was the opening drive of the game in which UNM went three-and-out. Air Force went down the field after a 49-yard punt by Aaron Rodriguez, but on a third-and-5 from the Lobo 22, Christian Ellis and Bobby Arnold III tackled Tylor Latham for a four-yard loss forcing a field goal.
From there, UNM’s offense was basically unstoppable. Dampier led a 75-yard touchdown drive, finishing it off with a 7-yard touchdown run to make it 7-3 with 14 seconds left in the first quarter. On Air Force’s next drive, Moso Tuitele sacked quarterback Quentin Hayes to force a punt, and Luke Freer outkicked his coverage with a 57-yard boot. Luke Wysong, returning his first punt of the season, took it at the Lobo 21, shook out of a tackle, got a great seal block from Max Lantzsch in his first game as a Lobo and he was off to the races for a 79-yard touchdown. That made it 14-3, and UNM really was never threatened after that.
The teams traded touchdowns for the rest of the second quarter, with Air Force scoring on a 5-yard Cade Harris run, but the Lobos quickly answered. After two Sol-Jay Maiava-Peters runs, Dampier hit Wysong for a 19-yard gain. Facing third down at the 18, Dampier hit Nic Trujillo for the freshman’s first career touchdown, giving UNM a 21-10 lead. Air Force responded again on a short run set up by its first completion of the game, but UNM basically killed off the final 2:46 of the half, scoring a back-breaking touchdown with 11 seconds left.
On that drive, Dampier found Wysong twice, and then he combined with him on a lateral play for 16 yards. Eventually on first-and-goal with 14 seconds left, Dampier waltzed in from two yards out for his third touchdowns of the game, second rushing, and UNM had a 28-17 halftime lead.
On the first drive of the second half, Air Force went for it on fourth-and-1 from its 34 but Noah Avinger broke through for a tackle for loss, and UNM took over at the Falcon 32. Maiava-Peters entered at quarterback and rushed twice to cover the 32 yards for a 35-17 lead.
On its next drive, Air Force fumbled and Dimitri Johnson recovered, giving UNM the ball again in Air Force territory, and that led to a short Luke Drzewiecki field goal and a 38-17 lead. Eli Sanders then scored after another failed four down by Air Force for a 45-17 after three quarters.
The game was effectively over from there, although Air Force did put up 20 points in the final quarter. They got a little help when the only defensive penalty of the game continued a drive after a third-down stop. Overall, UNM seemingly solved its penalty issues, with just four on the day after a school record 17 in its last game.
Sanders completed the scoring for UNM with a second long touchdown run, giving UNM five rushing touchdowns one game after seven against New Mexico State.