New Mexico St Aggies 2022 College Football Preview
June 19, 2022
2021 Recap
Record – 2-10
ATS – 7-5
Yikes. Another tough season.
It seems like yesterday when the Aggies SHOCKED the WORLD and took down Utah St in the Arizona Bowl to finish with a winning record (7-6). That was 2017, and recall that was just the second time this CENTURY that New Mexico St finished with a winning record (2002, 7-5).
Jerry Kill rolls into Las Cruces as HC and he’s got a very good track record. Let’s dig in and see what he has to work with this year.
New Mexico St Aggies 2022 Outlook
OFFENSE
The Aggies didn’t get much done on the ground LY (#123 FBS rush offense), and while they managed to sling the ball around a bit via the THROW GAME (#25), they were very inefficient when doing so (15-10 TD to INT, 57%, 6.2 YPA). Things look pretty sketchy in the QB room and the battle for the starting job appears to be between true freshman Gavin Frakes and a JUCO transfer from something known as the New Mexico Military Institute (Diego Pavia). The WR group is also a mystery as they lose their top-three guys and they’ll need to get serious production from Dominic Gicinto who looked good in their first two games of 2021 (7-64, TD vs SD St) before suffering a season-ending injury. Losing RB Juwaun Price hurts (692, 10 TD LY) but they hope that TCU transfer Ahmonte Watkins handle the #1 duties. Three OL starters are back in the mix but they need to replace their C and LT. We hate to be the bringer of GRIM TIDINGS but things look rotten on this side of the football unless they get an unexpected surprise performance at QB.
DEFENSE
New Mexico St allowed 40+ PPG for the third time in four years LY and didn’t do much of anything right (#127 FBS total defense, #112 run D, #129 pass efficiency D, 19 sacks). Nine starters from that defense are back for duty and there are some good players to build a foundation upon. LB Chris Ojoh was #3 in tackles LY whilst picking up a team-leading six sacks and LB Trevor Brohard is rock solid. DL Donavan King had 10 TFL, and they’re set at CB with Syrus Dumas and DJ McCullough. They’ve also done a good job of adding bodies from the transfer portal. We feel a lot better about the stop unit than the offense.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Things don’t look horrible. They have a fine PK in Ethan Albertson (17-22, 3-3 50+ LY) and Josh Carlson is back to handle the punting duties. They need to get a lot more out of PR and KR.
Schedule Analysis
Overall – It’s a mixed bag. On the positive side, there are actually a few winnable games to look forward to (FIU, New Mexico, UMass, Lamar) and they’ll be at home for a long stretch in the middle of the season (at Wisconsin, Sept 17…..at UMass, October 29). The bad news? Lots of BODY BAG games on the road.
Potential ATS Trouble Spot – September 17th – at Wisconsin
This will be their 3rd road game in a row and it smells like BLOODBATH CITY. We doubt we’ll be interested in taking the tempting bundle of points in this spot.
Season Win Total
per BetOnline July 19
Over 3 -125
Under 3 -105
MEGALOCKS says:
Lean: Under
88 of our 97 models have the Aggies finishing with three wins or less.
It’s hard to bet against Jerry Kill tho, especially when he has a weak-looking team on paper, so we don’t think this will make our season win total card. But stay tuned just in case!
MEGAmazing Tidbits
MEGALOCKS Outlook:
Want more New Mexico St Football ?
WEBSITE
https://nmstatesports.com/sports/football
FORUM
https://csnbbs.com/forum-378.html
NEWS
http://www.lcsun-news.com/sports/nmsu-sports/
https://www.espn.com/college-football/team/_/id/166/new-mexico-state-aggies