Bronco Mendenhall is doing it again.
In Mendenhall’s first season as head coach of the New Mexico Lobos football team following a two-year retirement, he already has a perennially bad team on the doorstep of a bowl game.
Following an 0-4 start to the season, which included a loss to FCS Montana State, the Lobos have won five of their last seven games, including a dramatic 38-35 victory last Saturday over the then-No. 18 Washington State Cougars that saw the field at University Stadium get stormed.
If the Lobos win their final game of the regular season Nov. 30 at Hawaii (New Mexico has a bye this week), they will be bowl eligible for the first time since 2016, when they went 9-4.
With the win over Washington State, New Mexico has already won more games than it had in a season since then. This follows Mendenhall having had similar success at Brigham Young University and Virginia.
Following the game, which saw standout Lobos quarterback Devon Dampier score the game-winning touchdown with 21 seconds left, the team chanted “We want Bronco!” as Mendenhall made his way to the locker room, and then just “Bronco!” as he entered the room.
Mendenhall then gave an emotional speech in the locker room.
“I’m not gonna say much. A coach is nothing without the people and the players that do the work,” he said.
The win came on a night when New Mexico struck first with a touchdown only to give up the game’s next three, and the Lobos trailed 28-14 at halftime.
New Mexico scored the only two touchdowns of the third quarter to tie things up heading into the fourth and then took a 31-28 lead on a field goal with 4:40 to play.
The Cougars responded, however, going 75 yards for a touchdown in just four plays and 1:28 to retake the lead with 3:12 remaining.
The Lobos only needed to get in field goal range for a chance to tie the game and send it into overtime, but keyed by a 33-yard run from Eli Sanders on an early third and 2 in the drive, they reached the red zone with 1:35 to play.
From there New Mexico converted two third downs, including the final play of the drive as Dampier punched it into the end zone from a yard out on third and goal.
“This is, I don’t even know … second half is ours. Don’t ever count us out,” Mendenhall said in his speech.
Mendenhall, 58, remained emotional during his postgame press conference.
𝕀𝕟 𝔹𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕔𝕠 𝕎𝕖 𝕋𝕣𝕦𝕤𝕥.
Take a listen to Coach Mendenhall’s postgame press conference. You won’t be disappointed.https://t.co/eauD3Zu1i5
— New Mexico Football (@UNMLoboFB) November 17, 2024
“What opening statement can you make?,” Mendenhall said. “One of the things that I believe is that everyone wants and needs an occasion to rise to, and the greatest gift I can give to anyone is that of extreme expectations, not just high expectations, and I expected this team to be able to do something remarkable in our first year.
“There’ve been times when it didn’t look like that might happen, but it has, and that doesn’t happen without believing that they can. They’ve worked really hard and they’ve led and they’ve battled and they’ve hung together and they’ve believed, and that has helped us all accomplish something pretty remarkable tonight that I’m lucky to be part of.”
Asked by a reporter where he was when the field got stormed, Mendenhall first said, “Yeah, I think we ought to just pause for a second. The field got stormed at the University of New Mexico.”
Mendenhall said once he got out of the party, he stood and watched the scene unfold and it reminded him of a time when something similar happened in his second season at Virginia when the Cavaliers became bowl eligible.
“This is more significant than that, and that was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen, where a community was so starved to have good football and to have a place to go for Christmas and play. It’s like, ‘Our football team is good,’ and this was better than that,” he said.
Asked if he believes in statement wins, Mendenhall said, “Yeah, I believe in statement wins. No. 1, winning is hard. Winning at places that aren’t used to winning is really hard. Beating top 20 teams is really hard, and doing it in Game 11 is super hard.
“So yeah, the statement it makes is these kids are tough, and they’re resilient and they’re capable and they deserve to be supported and cheered for, and that’s what happened tonight, is New Mexico fans rushed the field and maybe had a moment of a lifetime, maybe, and that kind of helps make sense of college football to me of how it’s worth it, just seeing stuff like that. I think it should give people hope, and I think it should give them belief that you can do hard things.”
Mendenhall said becoming bowl eligible has been a catalyst in wins the last two weeks, as the team had picked up its sixth loss of the season on Nov. 2 in a game it relinquished a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter.
“They knew, and we’ve talked really bluntly, if they don’t win, we’re not postseason eligible, and they want to be.”
