Lobos drop home opener to TCU

By Eric Maddy
The SCORE

It took less than a quarter for the cynics at Saturday’s University of New Mexico football game to start wondering when basketball season starts.

Visiting TCU continued its dominance of the Lobos, rolling to a 26-3 victory in the season opener for both teams at University Stadium.

Coming off a season where the Lobos won their first bowl game since 1961, die-hard fans had visions of a successful September with high-profile home games against TCU, Texas A&M and Arizona. Instead it might be a rocky road for veteran head coach Rocky Long, who starting quarterback Donovan Porterie in the second quarter and watched his team struggle in its season opener again.

New Mexico is 5-6 in its 11 openers under Long and has not scored a touchdown in its last three. The news is even worse against TCU: Long is 0-4 against TCU coach Gary Patterson, a former Lobo defensive coordinator, and New Mexico has never won a Mountain West Conference game against the Horned Frogs.

And it became apparent very early on that those trends were not likely to change.

It only took two series and less than a quarter for the boo-birds to come out after two three-and-out series, a seven-yard punt and two TCU drives left the UNM trailing 10-0.

And it got worse. Porterie gave up an interception on the Lobos’ third series that led to TCU’s third score, and apparently sustained his neck injury while being sacked and fumbling with 5:30 remaining in the half.

He did not return in the second half and Long said after the game he had no other information as to his health status for next week’s game against Texas A&M.

Meanwhile, UNM’s backup quarterbacks were sitting ducks under the TCU rush. The Horned Frogs finished with five sacks in the game for 29 yards in losses.

“A lot of conversation was about what we had to do as a team to make sure we went and got takeaways, which we did – put pressure on the quarterback, stopped the running game and made sure we didn’t turn the ball over,” said Patterson. “One of the good things about playing a New Mexico team is it made you get ready for the kind of intensity that you will get when you play on the road and play a game like this.”

For senior safety Blake Ligon, it was all about getting tougher.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said. “We’ve got to get better prepared mentally (both) offensively and defensively. We’ve got to establish the line, both offense and defense. They were running up the middle and we couldn’t stop them from getting to our backs in the backfield. We need to work on getting a whole lot more physical.”

It was unclear if Ligon was channeling Long’s thoughts or vice versa, but the sentiment was the same.

“The offensive and defensive line of scrimmage has to be stronger than it was tonight,” Long said. “They’ve got to be more physical.

“On offense they’ve got to keep people from penetrating the line of scrimmage, which ruins the running game. And obviously we’ve got to protect the quarterback better.

“On defense, they weren’t getting huge gains, but every play was three or four or five yards. You have to be more physical up front than that. You’re going to give up some of those, but you shouldn’t give up as many as we gave up.”

TCU could have built a bigger lead in the first half, but missed two field goal attempts and failed to score after recovering Porterie’s fumble. The other numbers at intermission weren’t pretty either: the Horned Frogs outgained the Lobos by a 2-to-1 margin in the first half, 144 yards to 72. TCU also led in time of possession (16:42 to 13:18), rushing yards (66-35), passing yards (78-37) and first downs (9-5).

The final numbers were closer but deceiving. TCU led in most of the major categories: first downs (20-9), rushing yards (171-56), and time of possession (34:52 to 25:08).

UNM actually finished with more passing yardage (130-120), but most of that came on one play. The only offensive bright spot was an 81-yard completion from backup quarterback Brad Gruner to Chris Hernandez, who stopped short to catch an underthrown pass and then got clear of TCU’s defensive back to get UNM out of the shadow of its own goal post.

“I don’t know if that was a good play or a bad play. It was an underthrown ball and Chris went and got it,” Long said.

But the drive stalled and UNM had to settle for a 28-yard field goal by James Aho, its only points of the game.

TCU’s second-half scores were set up by an interception of backup quarterback Brad Gruner and a 53-yard punt return by Horned Frog back Jeremy Kerley to the UNM 4.

A major concern for the Lobos has to be on special teams. In addition to giving up the long punt return, new punter Adam Miller managed just 26.8 net punting on nine attempts and deep-snapper Tim Lutz, a true freshman from Albuquerque Eldorado, struggled in getting the ball to him.

“I thought the deep snapper was average. He’s a true freshman, so we kind of expected that. I thought our punting was just like it is in practice – he’ll kick a 50-yarder, then he’ll shank one off the side of his foot. Those who play golf know that you do it too sometimes.”

The punting woes led to poor field position that allowed TCU to establish its dominance. TCU’s average starting position was at the 50; UNM’s was at its own 18.

“Obviously they had a lot better field position than we did. The field position was the key to the whole game and it started right from the beginning. I think the wind was a little factor at the beginning, but most of it was they established the line of scrimmage. They controlled it on offense and defense.

“I’m really disappointed. I’m the guy in charge and we didn’t do a very good job of coaching,” Long said. “But I’m not discouraged. There was always a possibility when your starting quarterback goes out that you will have a very hard time making a comeback.

“We’ll get better. We’re going to be a good football team before it’s all over. Whether it’s next week or not, I don’t have any idea. But we’ll be a good football team before it’s over.”

Added team captain and running back Rodney Ferguson: “We need to play as a team next week because today we got whupped as a team. They were just more prepared than us and we didn’t come out to play.”

Neither did next week's foe, Texas A&M, which dropped its home opner to Arkansas State 18-14 on Saturday.