Everyone's still pretty happy over at the UNM football complex the day after their big win over San Diego State to earn a spot in the New Mexico Bowl.

The team will take this week off, then practice for three days the following week, four the next week and treat the week before the bowl game as a regular practice week. It looks like UNM will face San Jose State, but the Lobos won't know for sure until the final BCS standings come out and it is clear Boise State is going to a BCS game. Boise State has moved up so high in the polls, its highly unlikely the Broncos would fall out of big-money bowl. That moves everyone in the WAC up a bowl spot and lets San Jose come here.

UNM coach Rocky Long said the Lobos will spend half the practice running against the scout team in bowl preparation, then the players returning next year will use the second half of practice like a spring football workout. He said the seniors will do some form of conditioning but likely will finish workouts early.

Long said the Lobos won't pick a starting quarterback until the coaches get a chance to see how both backup senior Chris Nelson and injured starter Donovan Porterie perform in practice. Porterie still is not back at full strength after spraining his ankle against TCU two weeks ago. Long also raised the possibility of starting all the UNM seniors for one play.

The next weeks will be pretty big for UNM recruiting. The Lobos only have 15 seniors on scholarship to replace, but they need to sign some junior college offensive linemen and fill in some other holes. So seven assistant coaches are going to be on the road the next two weeks, with a few staying home next weekend if they have recruits coming to town on official visits. UNM coach Rocky Long will run the first three bowl practices with a skeleton crew while his coaches stay on the recruiting trail.

There were no major injuries reported after the San Diego State game.

Long said he was happy with the win over the Aztecs, but he was not happy his team let up on both sides of the ball in the fourth quarter. San Diego State had 27 snaps in the fourth quarter, which is twice as many as Long would have liked to have seen. He said part of the problem was the defense allowing San Diego State to move the ball, and the other part was the UNM offense only running six plays and failing to run time off the clock. "I guess that's expected but it upsets you as a coach," Long said.

That's all for now. Check out Monday's Tribune for loads more Lobo football coverage.

Posted by ilimon at 03:13 PM | Permalink