What They Said: New Mexico HC Jason Eck recaps loss to Michigan

Opening Statement

Proud of our team. I thought we battled and competed. I thought we were a little rattled early just with the atmosphere and things and really tough to let a team who’s as good as Michigan get a 17-0 lead. But, you know, we kept battling. I thought we competed. I thought we played hard right to the end. Proud of the defense. Got a few stops late and they were still going. I mean, they tried to throw it there with about four minutes left and stuff and we did a pretty good job but you lose the turnover margin 3-0 against a team like Michigan on the road. Your chances of winning that game are one in a million. So we just got some feedback. We got to get better. We got to hit the practice field this week and improve as a team, but I believe in these guys and I think we’ll continue to get better and grow.

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On running a similar trick play before

Yeah, we ran it in 2021 at South Dakota State against North Dakota State for a touchdown. We beat them that year. So that worst feeling is a lot more fun to run that play than to win.

On whether this loss is something to build on

Well, the team that was picked to win our league, went on the road, played a group of five team and got whooped on the road. So it’s where we go from here. You know, it’s where we go from here and we got to certainly get better. I don’t know if there’s a team as good as the best team in the league last year. So we got to grow and we got to get better. But I do think there’s some positives, you know, like Jackson, mentioned only having one penalty. It’s great growth after leading the country in that last year. And, you know, there’ll be a lot of stuff we can improve. And I do think Michigan will probably have the best personnel that we play against all year. UCLA will be very good as well. But Michigan’s got great personnel. I mean, they got a lot of great players.

On coach communication issues on defense

Well, yeah, it was an issue. We got to get that fixed. We got to get extenders or something, but we had problems. I think at home we put it right at the 50-yard line. Well, the problem at the 50-yard line here is it’s a tunnel. So, you know, it was an issue. It was a big issue and we were away from where it was offset. But we even had some problems on the other end. So we got to get that fixed because we did have some communication issues, particularly on their second touchdown drive when it was down there away from where our coach comm was set up. We put the kids in bad positions and that stuff we got to improve. And, you know, if we don’t have that, we got to get things signaled in and, you know, we got to work through that.

On protecting the quarterback better

Both, you know, they got really good personnel. I don’t think we’ll see, you know, many rushers like number eight, Derrick Moore. You know, you ain’t going to see another guy like him all year. But we got to get better. We got to protect the quarterback better. We got to have a little bit more urgency. And really, that’s not the way we want to play. You know, we had 16 tailback runs. We threw it 47 times. That’s not going to be our recipe for success.

On getting after his players for talking on the field

I thought we got a little chippy. They got a little chippy. You know, I think the refs did a good job of officiating it well and not calling any 15-yard penalties. But I thought sometimes we were on the edge. I thought we probably should have been called for one. And again, that’s stuff that we’ve really emphasized. We can’t have the Lobos beat the Lobos. And one of them was in the red zone, which, you know, those are critical 15-yard penalties if you get one in the red zone to push you back. So just, you know, we continue to be a more disciplined team that doesn’t beat themselves.

On rotation on the offensive line

Yeah, you know, every week you got to evaluate the roster, but particularly after first games because, again, this is the first time we had to see guys play against live bullets and see who really stepped up and played well. I thought some guys who, you know, David Murphy, Randolph Kpai made some really big plays on special teams. And that’s always a precursor, if those guys are making plays on special teams, maybe we got to look at playing them a little bit more on defense and things. So we have to do a really good job of evaluating this tape. Our first time seeing this team play live and make sure we’re putting guys in the right spot.

On Dorian Thomas’ night

Dorian’s a big-time football player. He got recruited to Arizona. He’s a power five-level player and I think he showed that tonight that he was not out of place playing against Michigan. We’ve had some great tight ends, you think back to the guys we had at South Dakota State with Dallas Goedert and Tucker Kraft, and I think if he can keep growing and get better and stay hungry, I think he could be a guy who’s in that kind of conversation.

On his thoughts on Bryce Underwood’s performance

He was awesome. I was impressed. I complimented him afterwards because I thought, you know, we cut it to seven right before the half and then we get him to third and 14. Feel pretty good, you know. Third and 14, does a good job sitting in the pocket. He didn’t turn it over at all, which is what you were, you know, that was our hope that we could maybe get a young quarterback to get frazzled and throw it over, but he’s very accurate. I just was watching him a lot in warm-ups and I thought just, you know, throwing routes on air. I mean, every ball is right on the money. I was hoping maybe getting people around and changing coverages, we’d throw him off a little bit, but he was very impressive and I thought that was probably his biggest drive of the game because I think you feel a lot more excited going into halftime if you’re down seven than down 14 because we had the ball. If we go down seven and have the ball to start, you really are energized, but that was a heck of a drive and he’s a great player. Maybe I’ll be telling my grandkids one day that I got the coach against Bryce Underwood, you know.

On what he told Underwood after the game

I was very impressed by his poise and his accuracy and he didn’t, and I really thought probably the biggest drive of the game as far as the outcome was that two-minute drive before the half. It was a great job by him.

On his players being rattled by the atmosphere

Yeah, I think 110,000 and probably the speed of the game too just because it’s tough to simulate, you know, that practice with scout teams, but I think it took us, I warned the team on Thursday to say you got to settle in, you know, because sometimes teams, sometimes you see teams like this, like when underdog comes in and you just, you lose it in five minutes, right? You turn it over three times in the first five minutes and it’s 28 nothing before you even blink and fortunately didn’t get that bad. But, you know, the first whatever eight minutes or 11 minutes, you know, we were down 14 nothing, but I thought we settled in and I was happy that when they were able to build that 17 nothing lead, it didn’t, I think, affect our effort or our focus. We kept battling and kept fighting, which I think is a positive sign for our team going forward.

On Daniel Hughes winning the starting punter job

He did, he did. It was a close battle. You know, somehow you punted pretty well today and we needed that one that bounced off, but we had to recover that. I mean, you need, to win games like this, you need that ball to bounce right and get that one. But I thought he did a good job, but yeah, he punted because he won the job. It was a close competition between him and Charles. It was a pretty close competition between Charles and Grant for the kickoff job, but Charles won that job. But, you know, we’re pretty deep there. I really feel like we have two capable punters and two capable kickoff guys. Luke is clearly our best place-kicking guy and that was neat for him. He was the Michigan kid, so he came home here and hit that. It was a 45-yarder, so I was proud of him.

On the trick play

Well, I mean, a little similar. I mean, we were able to cut it to three in the Oregon game, which we were never able to get that close in this game, you know, to get it to one one-possession game. But both teams are very good quarterbacks with Dylan Gabriel and Underwood. I kind of hoped going in we could get them to turn it over and they never turned it over.

On what the game meant for perspective of his program nationally

Really, I just hope people in Albuquerque appreciate it and they come out and see us play next week because we’re going to fight. This team’s going to fight and going to battle. We’ve got a great coaching staff. It’s going to be a well-coached team. We’re going to get this program turned around. Obviously, in game one, we weren’t good enough to face a great opponent like Michigan. But I think we can build this and we need people to get behind us and support it. But I see us down the road being able to win a game like this down the road. It might take us a few years. It might take us three or four years to get to that point. But they’re going to fight and I think they’re going to give our people of Albuquerque and people in the state of New Mexico something to be proud of. That we’re going to compete and we’re never going to back down no matter who we’re playing. I mean, obviously, we were pretty big underdogs with 35 or whatever points in this game, but we fought our ass off.