Utah State Football Opponent Preview Vol. 7 - New Mexico (2024)

Following the gauntlet of early October, Utah State will host New Mexico in a game that will mark the beginning of the second half of the season. This second half will feature teams that are, by preseason standards, easier opponents. Games against projected lower-end-of-the conference teams like the Lobos, Hawaii, San Diego State and Colorado State will contrast against two top-30 teams like USC and Utah and games against the top two teams in the preseason MW poll, UNLV and Boise State.

This is the seventh installment in a series of 12opponent previews that will go in-depth on each of the Aggies foes for the 2024 football season.

Game Info

• Game Day:Oct. 19
• Location:Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium (Logan, UT)
• Kickoff Time:2 p.m.
• TV Broadcast:truTV

Quick-Hit Info on New Mexico

• Head Coach:Bronco Mendenhall(1st season at New Mexico)
• 2023 Record:4-8(2-6 in MW)
• 2023 Offense Rank:265th(27.7 points per game)
• 2023 Defense Rank:126th(35.1 points allowed per game)
• Returning Production Rank— 123rd
• 2024 Preseason Consensus Ranking— 69th

History of Utah State vs New Mexico

• All-Time:Utah State leads 17-13
• Current Streak:Utah State has won the last seven meetings
• First-ever Meeting:Dec. 1, 1951 (New Mexico won 17-13)
• Last Meeting:Nov. 24, 2023 (Utah State won 44-41 in 2OT)

Once upon a time, New Mexico held the advantage in this series, but a seven-game series winning streak by Utah State has flipped the balance. And without a turnaround from the Lobos in football, that streak is likely to continue and the gap in the overall series could get much wider. Even in down seasons for USU in 2022 and 2023, the Lobos were still unable to get over the hump, even when playing at home in the latter game.

New Mexico Players to Watch

• Devon Dampier (QB)
• Andrew Henry (RB)
• Caleb Medford (WR)
• Kyler Drake (DE)
• Tyler Kiehne (DT)
• Tavian Combs (DB)

The Lobos in 2023

New Mexico seemed agonizingly close at times last year to a breakthrough toward getting something close to the 2015 and 2016 seasons, which mark the last two times the Lobos made a bowl game. The Lobos started the year 2-2, and in mid-October were 3-4. At that point, the path for long sought after bowl eligibility came down to beating Nevada and Utah State along with an upset over any of UNLV, Boise State or Fresno State. Not the most far-fetched thing in the world, especially with an offense that was doing fairly solid (29.9 points per game after seven games). Somehow, New Mexico did manage an upset over Fresno State IN Fresno, which was arguably the harder part of what they had to do to reach that six-win benchmark. But the Lobos lost both the Nevada and Utah State games.

Even when a loss to Boise State mathematically eliminated New Mexico from bowl contention with two more weeks left in the regular season, the Lobos still nearly pulled off a solid end to the year. The first of those two games was the aforementioned upset victory at Fresno State, which was a good start, but the latter of the contests was a loss to Utah State at home in a dramatic double-overtime game. Winning both of those games wouldn't have fixed everything, probably wouldn't have saved Danny Gonzales from being fired and probably wouldn't have stopped the relatively high offseason attrition New Mexico went through. But a 5-7 season would have had a much better feel than 4-8.

2024 Season Prospects

Hiring Bronco Mendenhall as head coach is either a brilliant move or a decision born of desperation. Time can only tell. Anyone who followed college football in the mid-2000s should be very familiar with what Mendenhall is capable of since they'd have seen his BYU teams. He rescued the Cougars from their post-LaVell Edwards funk and turned them back into more of what they'd been under the Hall-of-Fame coach. Mendenhall's success at BYU petered off a tad in the early 2010s and then his stock went a bit downhill in the wake of his surprise move to Virginia in 2016. After posting a .697 win percentage at BYU, he had a sub-.500 mark at Virginia (.486). Mendenhall left Virginia in 2021 and didn't hold a head coaching job until New Mexico hired him this offseason.

The one singular question everyone must ask is whether Mendenhall still has what it takes to turn a program around. He did it at BYU and you could argue he kind of did so at Virginia (the Cavaliers went 27-46 from 2010-15 and then 36-38 under Mendenhall, which you could make look even better if you threw out the first year of Mendenhall where the team went 2-10 as it began to rebuild). But rebuilding New Mexico is a whole different animal. In the last 16 seasons, the Lobos have averaged 3.1 wins per season. Neither BYU or Virginia were subject to a valley that deep. And as much as the New Mexico faithful would love a year one breakout under Mendenhall, this is probably going to be a multi-year project. Likely akin to UNLV.

"[There's] a lot of work to do, but I like my players," Mendenhall told Cache Valley Daily reporter Craig Hislop at Mountain West media days. "They're tough. They're resilient. They're gritty. They'll try hard. And they're desperate for success. We have a lot of work to do. We're just the beginning stage of building our program, but I like their attitude and I think we got a chance."

Mendenhall needed a 2-10 season in year one before he took the Cavaliers to three straight bowl games. That may be the fate of the 2024 Lobos. There's very little returning talent from last year, ranking 123rd in returning production, and some might say that's for the best given recent lack of success, but it lowers the floor for this season even if it might raise the ceiling.

The Lobos' offense is going to be starting over almost from scratch, getting a new QB, a new RB1, a largely new pass-catching corps and an entirely new offensive line. There are a few returning faces with some notable production from last year, but all were (mostly) in backup roles. There's Caleb Medford, who led New Mexico in receiving yards (30 receptions, 551 yards, two touchdowns), and then Andrew Henry who played a clear second fiddle at running back to 1,000-yard rusher Jacory Croskey-Merritt. Quarterback Devon Dampier made a few appearances, most notably against Boise State when he completed 17-of-26 passes for 200 yards, but other than that one game his time on the field was usually brief.

Dampier, Medford and Henry look to be entering 2024 as the ones expected to be the top player at their respective positions. Dampier looked pretty solid in his occasional showings as he completed 62.5 percent of his passes and had six touchdowns to zero interceptions. He also ran for 328 yards and four more touchdowns. There's danger in extrapolating his spotty playing time into a full season's worth of snaps, but those numbers seem to indicate a decent foundation to build on.

Defensively there's a little more there. Instead of two returning starters there's six. And that side of the ball is where New Mexico has gotten any kind of preseason all-conference team consideration for its players (mainly third and fourth team All-MW honors from Phil Steele or Athlon). So despite the fact that New Mexico ranked near the bottom in points allowed last season, the team could be turning to its defense for experience.

Nearly all of the returners on defense are in the front seven. Kyler Drake, a defensive end, led the team in sacks and TFLs last year with 3.5 and 6.0, respectively. Any continued improvement from him as he enters his senior season would be a big boon. Two of New Mexico's other returning starters are also on the defensive line, Gabriel Lopez and Tyler Kiehne. Both had little production in the way of tackles, sacks or TFLs, but any returning experience helps with many of the incoming transfers.

The remaining two returning starters are probably the two most overall productive returners — linebacker Dimitri Johnson and defensive back/hybrid Tavian Combs. The two ranked fifth and sixth, respectively, in tackles last season and combined for five pass deflections, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.

Whatever New Mexico manages to accomplish is going to be based on how much internal development they pull off combined with how many surprise performances it can pull from newcomers and transfers. The offensive line will be the biggest test of Mendenhall's portal recruiting since the starting five will almost entirely be made up of transfers. If those pieces come together quick, maybe there's some hope for a bowl appearance for the first time in nearly a decade.

Preseason Game Prediction — Fairly Decisive Win

Perhaps Mendenhall will manage something of a year one turnaround, that wouldn't be unheard of for first-year coaches in the Mountain West. But the history of poor play at New Mexico will probably be a bit too much to pull off what Utah State did in 2021 and UNLV did in 2023. And, after all, Utah State has lost to New Mexico at home just once in the 21st century, that happening in 2016. That year, USU went 3-9 and New Mexico went 9-4. And it was still a close game with UNM winning 24-21 with the Lobos having trailed 21-6 in the middle of the third quarter and the game tied 21-21 with two minutes left. You don't really want to chalk up wins based on previous years, but it's a pretty indicative trend. USU is at a higher level as a program right now than New Mexico. Until that changes, the predictions won't change.