Bottom drops out on Lobos

When New Mexico took the field at Texas A&M to open the 2009 football season and usher in the Mike Locksley era, Lobos followers were optimistic.

The Rocky Long-coached regime didn’t leave Locksley much talent, but he hired a quality staff and appeared to have an encouraging first training camp that August.

Beating the Aggies was a reach, but New Mexico figured to be competitive. The Lobos, though, weren’t close, losing 41-6 and leaving athletic director Paul Krebs looking like he’d been punched in the stomach.

New Mexico supporters still feel queasy more than a year later. The Lobos have dropped so far so fast that they might be the worst team in college football’s top division.

They are last nationally in total and scoring defense and in the bottom 10 in total, scoring and rushing offense and rushing and passing defense.

"This team needs an exorcism," said Bruce Marshall of The Gold Sheet and VegasInsider.com.

New Mexico even is a 10½-point underdog in Saturday’s 7 p.m. matchup with woeful UNLV at Sam Boyd Stadium. Both teams are 0-3, including 0-1 in the Mountain West Conference.

The Lobos — who are on a three-year NCAA probation for academic fraud in 2004 and 2005 — never have been confused with a football powerhouse, but they at least were competitive in recent seasons.

Long coached them to five bowl appearances from 2002 to 2007, and Dennis Franchione guided the Lobos to the 1997 Western Athletic Conference title game.

Locksley is 1-14 since taking over, and he is coming off a year in which he was suspended for 10 days for allegedly striking an assistant coach and was accused of age discrimination against a football administrative assistant.

Buying out Locksley — a mostly discredited Internet rumor said former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach would replace him at midseason — would be expensive and possibly unlikely in a struggling economy unless someone with deep pockets steps forward.

Locksley has four years left on his contract after this season, a deal that pays him $750,000 annually.

"Strictly from a football standpoint, I think he deserves another year simply because of the NCAA stuff," Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal columnist Rick Wright said. "He deserves" the administration’s backing.

Wright said blaming all the Lobos’ ills on Locksley is too simplistic.

The NCAA hit New Mexico for a scholarship reduction of five each in 2009 and 2010 and four in 2011. The Lobos are limited to 80 of a possible 85 scholarships this season and to 81 next year.

Locksley also was handed a schedule this season that opened at Oregon and against Texas Tech and Utah — similar to the Rebels’ early slate.

But Locksley has not used probation, the nearly bare cupboard left by Long or the schedule as excuses and instead has talked about the importance to changing the team’s mindset.

"We’ve seen our players being very accepting of buying in to everything we’ve asked them to do," Locksley said.

Wright said Locksley has won over the locker room, but fans don’t care about such relationships. They just ask for a coach who wins.

Maybe Locksley eventually will turn around the program and Krebs will not look so shocked while standing on the sideline, but the future is difficult to consider when the present is so dim.

The Gold Sheet’s Marshall called Locksley a "terrible hire" and said the Lobos are "unspeakably bad."

"That’s what’s so upsetting," Marshall said. "They’re uncompetitive."

Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914.