Dec. 6—I was ready to go after Bronco Mendenhall like an edge rusher after a quarterback. Half of me still wants to.
As in …
You’re a phony, Bronco, one for whom New Mexico clearly meant next to nothing. First chance you get, you’re gone. Will you cry during your introductory news conference at Utah State, like you did almost exactly a year before at UNM?
And don’t let me hear you say Utah State was the only job you would have left UNM for, since you were available to New Mexico only because you didn’t get the Boise State job.
Yes, you’re from Alpine, Utah. Rocky Long is from Provo, and he stayed at New Mexico for 11 years.
Yes, you’re of the LDS faith. There’s a significant LDS presence right here in Albuquerque, as I’m sure you know. And if faith and family is so important to you, why did you leave BYU for Virginia in 2016?
But … there’s the other half of me, the New Mexico native, UNM graduate half that says, well, you know, of course. It was sooo predictable.
It’s New Mexico football, after all, a program that’s had 15 winning seasons, eight bowl appearances and no conference championships in the past 60 years.
What else should we have expected? The worst that could happen usually does. That’s New Mexico football.
Look. If timing isn’t everything, it’s way ahead of whatever’s in second place.
When Mendenhall accepted the New Mexico job, the Utah State job wasn’t open. Had it been, he’d have just finished his first year at USU.
And here’s a key sentence from Utah State’s news release, announcing Mendenhall as its new head football coach:
“Mendenhall’s move allows him to be closer to his 93-year-old mother, Lenore Mendenhall, who lives in Alpine…”
Oh, man. Who can’t relate to that?
It has been reported that Mendenhall’s six-year contract at USU will pay him $2 million in year one. Yet, if he says “It’s not about the money,” I’ll actually believe him.
From a New Mexico standpoint, here’s the worst part. The foundation Mendenhall began to build at UNM in his one and only season is already torn asunder.
Devon Dampier, the first-team All-Mountain West dual-threat quarterback? Headed for the transfer portal. Cleveland High School graduate Luke Wysong, the second-team All-MWC wide receiver? Portal. Eli Sanders, the second-team All-MWC running back? Portal.
Wysong this past season caught more passes than any UNM receiver since 2007. Of the 5,811 yards of offense generated by the Lobos this fall, Dampier and Sanders accounted for 4,997 of them.
It’s unclear whether any of the above three will follow Mendenhall to Utah State. Almost certainly, Dampier is Power 4 conference-bound. As for Wysong and Sanders, just know, guys, it gets really, really cold in Logan, Utah, come November.
There’ve been other departures, and, of course there’ll be more.
Gone is offensive coordinator Jason Beck, who rather than follow Mendenhall to Logan took the OC position at Utah. Beck would have been an intriguing head-coaching candidate at UNM. As for the rest of Mendenhall’s staff, most almost certainly will join Mendenhall at Utah State.
So, then, Fernando Lovo, welcome to New Mexico. Less than a week after his arrival, UNM’s new athletic director is looking for a new football coach.
Football has been his specialty at his previous stops, so there’s that. But all he revealed on Friday morning during a 13-minute conversation with Jeff Siembieda and J.J. Buck on their radio show is that he has mastered the administrator’s art of speaking at length without saying anything.
At this point, that’s understandable. There’s clear urgency here, but as John Wooden was known to say, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”
Get the right guy.
A year ago after then-AD Eddie Nuñez fired coach Danny Gonzales, Nuñez delivered with what appeared to be the right guy — almost unanimously deemed so: Mendenhall.
He wasn’t the right guy. The right guy wouldn’t have left after one season, regardless of the whys and wherefores. But Nuñez, now the AD at Houston, could not have seen that coming. Not even Mendenhall could have.
What Lovo sees coming, or so he says, is a highly successful UNM football program.
He said it at his introductory news conference, before Mendenhall left. He said it again Friday morning on the radio, after Mendenhall left.
OK, but among Lovo’s eight predecessors as UNM’s athletic director since 1965, none left with football having had a winning record. Rudy Davalos, who hired Long in 1997, came the closest (76-80). And all that, or almost all, was with no NIL and no transfer portal.
So, on we go.
Fernando, you’re up.
