After two wins that helped redefine the program, the Lobos suffered a heartbreaking loss to CSU. That loss meant that their last game of the season would no longer be one where they were playing for the division title, but instead would just be a chance to take down the division champion. These Lobos haven’t been ones to sit around, licking their wounds, so I expect them to bring a fight to the Falcons. Hopefully, by doing so they can send the seniors off in style.
So who are we playing?
As everyone expected, Air Force has basically torn through their conference schedule this season and has a good shot of hosting the conference championship.
Let me try that again: Much to the surprise of just about everyone, the Air Force Falcons, selected fourth in the Mountain Division preseason poll, have already clinched the division. I think that they caught everyone by surprise because typically, whenever Air Force puts together a good season in a sport, their top players graduate and the team’s quality plummets. That looked like it might be the case this year, as they lost a senior quarterback and didn’t seem to have a great replacement waiting in the wings. However, their coach, Troy Calhoun, has done an excellent job again this season to not only make sure there wasn’t a drop off, the team actually got better.
The guy that the Falcons were expecting to take over behind center, Nate Romine, tore his ACL and MCL in his right knee in only the second game of the season. So, enter seldom-used senior QB Karson Roberts. Roberts hasn’t set the world on fire statistically, but he has been effective in running the offense. He has done well in the run game, both as the guy carrying the ball and as the guy pitching the ball to someone else, and has done a really good job of picking his spots to throw the ball. He barely has more than 100 passing attempts on the season but has accumulated over 1200 yards in the air. And that’s with a 55% completion rate, so when the ball does get caught, it goes for a lot of yards. His main targets have been Garrett Brown, a running back who has the most catches on the team, and Jalen Robinette, a 6’4” receiver who has the most receiving yards and touchdowns for the Falcons.
On the ground, the Falcons have 11 guys who have more than 20 carries on the season, six of which have more than 40. The primary running back, though, has been Jacobi Owens, a RB with good size who can be hard to bring down. After him, Roberts actually has the next most carries for the team and has the most rushing touchdowns to boot. D.J. Johnson is the true RB who has gotten the next most touches, but because he has been hampered with an ankle injury, Air Force might not use him as much as some other guys.
On defense, let me be probably the 12,423,141st guy to point out that the Falcons are led by junior DB Weston Steelhammer, because holy cow. Despite having a name that would seem unrealistic for a character in an action movie, Steelhammer has been one of the best DB’s in the Mountain West the past couple of seasons and even found himself on the Jim Thorpe Award preseason watch list. He leads the team in tackles and in interceptions. They also have been getting a lot of production out of DB Roland Ladipo, who is just behind Steelhammer in tackles and is tied for the team lead in interceptions while also having the most passes deflected on the team. Their main man on the defensive line is Alexander Hansen, who leads the team in sacks and tackles for loss and will probably be called on to stop the Lobos rushing attempts up the middle.
Team Comparison
With this week’s update of the OFEI and DFEI ratings, we can see how the Lobos and their opponents are doing by those metrics this season compared to all of the other FBS teams. The Lobos seem to have settled in their rankings, sitting at a little below average at both offense and defense. Air Force, on the other hand, have been a little above average defensively and above average offensively.
In terms of FEI, Colorado State has the 35th ranked offense and the 55th ranked defense in all of the FBS. With that sort of performance, it’s not a huge surprise that they’ll be representing the Mountain Division in the conference championship. In fact, the plot below shows how all of the Mountain West teams currently rate in OFEI and DFEI.
From this, any of Air Force, Boise State, or Utah State coming out of the Mountain Division wouldn’t have been much of a shock, but any of the other teams from the division would have been. In the West Division, if anyone besides San Diego State had made it, it would have been really surprising. They have clearly been the best team in that division and are right up there with the top teams in the Mountain Division. Should make for a good conference championship.
As we have been doing, we’ll be comparing the production of each team by yards per attempt. The following two plots show the breakdowns of yards gained by both teams and the yards allowed by both teams. In the first plot, we see that the Lobos have been a little worse than the Falcons on the ground but are significantly behind them on passing plays. The two teams actually gain fairly similar amounts of yards in the air per game (129.4 for UNM and 136.0 for AFA), but Air Force gets their yards on only 11.6 attempts per game compared to the 18.0 attempts per game the Lobos use. They actually aren’t much more accurate in their passes than the Lobos, but seem to be really good at taking chances downfield when their opponents sell out for a run. In all honesty, the Lobos could probably learn a thing or two from them.
In the second plot, we see how effective each team has been against the pass and the run. As we can see, the Falcons have been better against both the pass and the run, ultimately allowing a half yard fewer per attempt than the Lobos are. Because of the makeup of the two teams, I expect the run defenses of each team to be what decides the game. Both teams will run the ball a lot, and in ways designed to keep the defense off guard, so both teams will need to be disciplined on defense unless they want to give up huge runs.
In the following plot, we see the difference between the teams’ points scored and points allowed. The Lobos are still running a positive point differential on the season, outscoring their opponents by 1.4 points per game, but that seems miniscule compared to what Air Force has been doing. The Falcons are currently outscoring their opponents by almost two touchdowns a game, showing that they have a strong defense to back up an explosive offense. In fact, after they started the season 1-3, they have won every single game by at least two touchdowns and their last five by at least 23 points.
Road Graders
If we pull up the teams that have the fewest passing attempts per game, we get Navy, Army, Georgia Southern, Air Force, Georgia Tech, and New Mexico. And that’s not much of a surprise. After all, those six teams are all known for running variations of option offenses and only use the pass when either absolutely necessary or as a sneak attack. Because of that, I wouldn’t expect to see very many pass plays tomorrow night, but the ones we do see will probably be for big yards. For both teams, it will be really important for the secondary to not sell out for the run and to keep track of the receivers down field, as both teams have taken advantage of that sort of thing for huge plays this season. Whichever team can do that will give themselves and advantage in this game.
What are We Fighting For?
So with the loss last week, rather than this being a showdown to see who wins the division, it simply became just another game on the schedule. On top of that, win or lose, the consensus seems to be that the Lobos are going to be invited to the New Mexico Bowl. So, the question that some fans might have is, what’s the point of this game anymore? I think there are a few answers to this, the first one being the pride of the team won’t let them not care about this game, but there are a few things that jump out to me. First, if the Lobos win this game, they will be guaranteed to have a winning record at the end of the season, regardless of what happens in their bowl game. That’s a much better sell to recruits and, just as importantly, to fans than being a team who was invited to a bowl game, but ended up 6-7 on the season. Second, by winning this game, the Lobos will have beaten all of their divisional opponents except for CSU. That would be a huge confidence boost for the team heading in to next season. Finally, well, let’s just give it its own section…
Senior Day
For 20 of the players, this will be the last time they play a regular season game at University Stadium. What’s so special about this group of seniors is that they, by and large, were the first guys to commit to playing for Bob Davie here at UNM, a school that had only one three games in their previous three seasons total and a coach who hadn’t been on the sidelines in a decade. They represent the beginning of the program’s rebuild and were the ones who are starting to see the fruits of their labor, and will be rewarded with their first bowl appearance. I know it’s a late game and I know it’s a holiday weekend, but I hope that a good number of fans show up to congratulate, and to thank, these seniors for their careers at UNM.
Prediction
The line for this game has Air Force by 10, which sounds about right. I think that this might end up being a tough game for the Lobos, so I have a hard time picking them to win (which might be a good thing for the Lobos, the way my picks have gone this season). So, I’ll take Air Force to win 33-24.
Game Info
What: The University of New Mexico (6-5) vs Colorado State University (8-3)
Where: University Stadium, Albuquerque, NM
When: Saturday, November 28 at 8:15pm MT
Where to Watch: ESPNU/ESPN3
How to Listen: 770 KKOB