Battle of I-25: All Roads Lead to Las Cruces

The Lobo has already burned. New Mexico State students took care of that part Thursday night. Now comes the considerably more difficult task.

On Saturday afternoon, New Mexico State and the University of New Mexico will meet for the 116th time, bringing the Rio Grande Rivalry back to Aggie Memorial Stadium with a chile roaster, a mayoral wager, two very different football teams and more than a century of accumulated aggravation riding alongside them.

Kickoff is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Sept. 26 in Las Cruces. The game will be televised nationally on CBS Sports Network. NM State enters at 1-2 following a bye week. New Mexico arrives at 2-1 after pushing nationally ranked Oklahoma deep into the fourth quarter in Norman, but those are merely the football particulars.

This is Aggies-Lobos, and by Friday morning, practically everybody will have picked a side.

Mayors make it official

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller added municipal consequences to the rivalry this week, announcing a wager with Las Cruces Mayor Eric Enriquez. The mayor representing the losing team will have to fly the winner’s flag at City Hall.

Keller made his position reasonably clear while tossing a football with New Mexico Head Coach Jason Eck. “We’re gonna take care of this,” Eck told him. “No pressure, Mayor Enriquez,” Keller wrote.

Las Cruces answered appropriately.

“Game on, Albuquerque!” the city responded, posting a photograph of Enriquez standing alongside NM State Head Coach Tony Sanchez, Thumbs Up, Guns Up.

The city’s assessment was somewhat less diplomatic than the usual municipal proclamation. Las Cruces is ready, it said, to “send those Lobos back up I-25 with a reminder of who runs Aggie country.”

Regional diplomacy has been suspended until approximately 5 p.m. Saturday.

Even the clothes tell the story

There will also be something new visible when the Aggies take the field. NM State enters the rivalry in its first season wearing Adidas after beginning a new multi-year partnership with Adidas and Game One on July 1. The agreement replaced Under Armour, which had outfitted Aggie Athletics since 2016.

This week, NM State unveiled its “Threads for the 116th Rio Grande Rivalry,” putting the new Adidas relationship squarely into one of the most photographed games of the season.

Up Interstate 25, the Lobos answered with their own Nike uniform photographs under a considerably shorter caption: “For New Mexico.”

The two logos represent markedly different chapters for the athletic departments.

New Mexico has worn Nike across its athletic program since 2008. Its current agreement extends that relationship through the 2026-27 academic year. Under the underlying agreement, UNM can acquire up to $3 million in Nike product at retail value annually at preferential pricing, paying one-third of the agreed retail allotment. A 2023 extension also increased a separate Nike Elite annual allotment for coaches and staff to as much as $150,000.

NM State’s Adidas agreement is new enough that the stripes are practically still being ironed on. The agreement runs through June 2031, with options for two additional one-year extensions. NM State committed to purchasing at least $550,000 in Adidas products annually, while Adidas provides promotional merchandise and other benefits under the agreement. Some dollar amounts associated with those promotional benefits were redacted from the publicly available contract copy, making a direct dollar-for-dollar comparison with UNM’s Nike agreement impractical, but the Aggie agreement contains another component suited particularly well to the current era of college athletics: NM State’s more than 400 student-athletes became eligible for the Adidas NIL Ambassador Network.

For the Lobos, Nike is continuity. For the Aggies, Adidas is part of a reset. Saturday, for the first time, those two eras meet on the same field.

There is excitement in Las Cruces

NM State Athletic Director Joe Fields didn’t bother hiding the atmosphere surrounding the game this week. “There is an excitement in Las Cruces,” Fields said. “Our community is fired up.”

There is plenty to fire it up.

The traditional “Burning of the Lobo” returned during rivalry week. NM State rolled out photographs built around the Aggie fight song. The new uniforms received their own reveal. The mayor joined the head coach, and somewhere on the drive south from Albuquerque is a roughly 30-pound reminder of what happened last year.

Courtesy New Mexico State University (via Facebook)

Bring back our chile roaster

Yes, this rivalry finally has a trophy again. Naturally, it’s a chile roaster. The story of “The Roaster” may be one of the more perfectly New Mexican developments in the 132-year history of Aggies-Lobos football.

The teams previously competed for the Maloof Trophy from 1993 through 2000, but that tradition disappeared. By 2025, two programs that had been playing one another since 1894 were once again meeting without a traveling football trophy. Jason Eck noticed.

During rivalry week last year, the then-first-year Lobo coach publicly complained that a series this old ought to have something tangible at stake. Students fixed it.

Photo: Courtesy UNM Lobo Football (via Facebook)

UNM students Carlos Tenorio II, Quentin Morrison and James Brevig joined NM State student Joseph Settle to create a tabletop chile roaster with wooden supports and branding from both schools. The trophy weighs about 30 pounds and was built with help from student supporters at both universities.

New Mexico then spoiled the christening.

Photo: Courtesy UNM Lobo Football (via Facebook)

The Lobos defeated the Aggies 38-20 in Albuquerque and became the first team to take possession of The Roaster. UNM’s game notes say the trophy will make the trip to Las Cruces Saturday and remain in one of the end zones until somebody earns the right to take it home.

Eck made it a point to be photographed triumphantly raising the trophy following last year’s game. Fine. He just needs to be sure to bring it down with him, this year.

The Lobos are not coming south quietly

For all the bonfires, mayoral wagers and rivalry-week fun, the football problem confronting NM State is substantial. New Mexico is 2-1 under second-year coach Jason Eck after going 9-4 in 2025. The Lobos opened this season with a 38-7 victory over Central Michigan and a 70-7 rout of Mercyhurst before traveling to Norman to face No. 24 Oklahoma.

The Sooners won… barely.

New Mexico held Oklahoma to 299 total yards and just 61 on the ground, forced three turnovers and remained within one possession throughout a 14-6 loss. The Lobos reached the Oklahoma 17 late in the fourth quarter before being stopped on fourth-and-two.

Through three games, UNM is allowing 9.3 points and 201 yards per game. The Lobos’ game notes list the defense fourth nationally in total defense, eighth in scoring defense and tied for 11th against the run through the season’s first three games. They have also outscored opponents 114-28.

That’s the team driving down I-25.

The Aggies have some numbers of their own

NM State had an extra week to prepare after a 29-19 loss at Hawaii that was closer than the final score suggests. The Aggies erased an early 16-point deficit, tied the game in the second half and trailed just 22-19 entering the fourth quarter. NM State outrushed Hawaii 124-67 before the Rainbow Warriors finally pulled away.

There are also pieces of the Aggie offense beginning to emerge. Running back James Jones has carried 43 times for 243 yards through three games, averaging 5.7 yards per attempt and 81 yards per game. He entered rivalry week as Conference USA’s leading rusher. TK King has 14 catches for 239 yards and two touchdowns, averaging 17.1 yards per reception, while AJ Williams III has averaged 16.9 yards on eight catches. With Trey Hedden pushing the ball downfield, NM State is averaging 14.3 yards per completion, and when the Aggies get themselves into third down, they have been unusually good at escaping it. NM State has converted 52.5% of its third downs, leading Conference USA and ranking 17th nationally entering the week.

The defense has its own calling card. NM State has forced at least one turnover in 19 consecutive games, the longest active streak in the country entering Saturday. Against Hawaii, De’Marcus Peters extended it spectacularly, returning a fumble 84 yards for a touchdown.

That matters against a Lobo team whose early success has been built in no small part on controlling possession and denying opponents opportunities.

Something will have to give.

A rivalry older than New Mexico

Saturday will be meeting No. 116. The rivalry began in 1894 — 18 years before New Mexico became a state — and, aside from interruptions including the pandemic-altered 2020 season, has survived generations of coaches, conferences, athletic directors, quarterbacks and institutional upheaval.

Photos: Courtesy UNM Lobo Football (via Facebook)

New Mexico owns the historical advantage and has won the last two meetings, but the more recent rivalry has been considerably tighter than the century-long record suggests.

NM State is 2-2 against the Lobos since 2022 and 4-5 since 2016. The Aggies’ most recent victory came in Albuquerque in 2023, when Albuquerque native Diego Pavia led NM State to a 27-17 win. The Aggies last beat New Mexico in Las Cruces in 2022.

There aren’t many Aggies left who personally remember those victories. Only Josiah Charles, Nick Session, Sone Aupiu, Gabe Peterson, Isaiah Rudison and Henry Davis III have played against New Mexico multiple times. Peterson is the only current Aggie who has appeared in at least three rivalry games, while Peterson and Aupiu are the only players on this year’s roster who have experienced an NM State victory over the Lobos.

Tony Sanchez knows the rivalry from another perspective. He played against New Mexico as an Aggie in 1994 and 1995 and has since participated in the series from the sideline, giving the NM State head coach a connection to the game spanning more than three decades.

September 26 has done this before

And because rivalry games apparently enjoy coincidences, Saturday’s date has one waiting. The last time New Mexico State played football on Sept. 26, the opponent was also New Mexico. That was 2009. The game was in Albuquerque. NM State won 20-17 behind 113 rushing yards from Seth Smith.

The Aggies are 9-7 all-time on Sept. 26. Make of that what you will.

One road, two cities

The rivalry is formally called the Rio Grande Rivalry. Around here, Battle of I-25 works just fine. For most of the year, the interstate is simply the road connecting New Mexico’s two largest population centers.

This week, it has traffic moving in both directions.

The Lobos are bringing a 2-1 record, one of the country’s stingiest early-season defenses, Nike uniforms and somebody else’s chile roaster.

The Aggies are waiting with a bye week behind them, Adidas uniforms, a bonfire already reduced to ashes and a community that its athletic director says is fired up.

There is also the small matter of a flagpole.

Somewhere after the final whistle, either Albuquerque City Hall will be flying Aggie colors or Las Cruces City Hall will be subjected to the alternative.

Kickoff is at 1:30 p.m.

Bring the Roaster, Lobos.

We’ll see you Saturday.