How bad is the UNM football team?

Last week UNM was the Vegas odds underdog in a home game versus Sam Houston State (a Division II school). UNM paid SHS $300,000 to come to Albuquerque and beat our horrible team. Granted, they won in overtime, and we scored more points than we've scored in quite a while. But UNM still lost.

So Coach Locksley was fired the next day. He'd spent two and a half years in the job and racked up an astounding 2 wins. How'd we ever win two? It's a miracle.

Locksley will go down as the worst head coach in the history of major college football, and not just because he wasn't able to win 3 games in two and a half seasons.

He was monstrously overpaid (he'll get out of town with between $2.5 to $3 million for his "efforts").

He acted like a teenager: 1. Dismissed his first administrative assistant because she wasn't "hot" 2. Attacked an assistant coach (probably because the ass coach told him he was a shitty coach) 3. Got in a fight at a local bar with a UNM sports journalist, and, well, lots of other stupid shit. On the way to last week's game, a 19-year old was busted for DWI in one of Locksley's cars. Not technically Locksley's fault, but still...he's the head coach? Okay, not anymore.

Somehow he was able to sweet talk our gullible AD into paying him like he had a record of good coaching. He came to UNM from Illinois where he was an offensive coordinator. He was touted as being a great recruiter (why, cause he got the recruits drunk?). And yet, he never seemed to figure out how to run an offense. Or a defense. Or a whole team. Or, really, himself.

And he will never have to be a head coach again (I doubt if anyone is considering giving this guy a job, but...) because he made more in less than three years than most people in this country make their entire lives.

Loboland was calling for his head pretty much from the start. But the buyout, the guaranteed money this guy got, was way too expensive to scrap him so soon. So UNM kept supporting him because they had to. They'd dug their grave and lined it with money.

I wasn't down on him from the beginning. The fight with the assistant coach seemed kinda funny at the time. The sacking of his administrative assistant was just crude. Both of these people have been paid lots of money by UNM for their run ins with Locksley. So do we put those settlements on top of Locksley's salary?

Or the amazing loss of revenue from having a shitty football team? Do we want to do that math?

The best course of action for UNM would be to take payday games for all non-conference contests next year. That way we can recoup something, because money from attendance at home games ain't gonna cut it.

The news of Locksley's firing came a week ago. This week the Lobos hosted our in-state rivals, New Mexico State. Ticket sales were brisk (and hailed as a result of the firing), but mostly because UNM vs. NMSU is always a good-selling game. It doesn't matter how bad UNM or NMSU are, this is for state pride!

NMSU scored on three first quarter drives with long passes. And the rest of the game was academic. Firing the coach didn't make UNM any better. NMSU beat us on our home field 42-28. For the third year in a row.

I think I've got some bad college football karma. When I went to Kansas State for one semester, the football team was named "Futility U" by Sports Illustrated. They won one game that year.

Until Locksley, the worst head coach in UNM history was the coach when I came to Albuquerque. And that guy got twice the number of games to win 9. He wasn't paid anywhere near what Locksley received, though.

Doing that math, Locksley would have won 4...maybe. But I'm pretty sure we're going 0-fer this year. Thanks dude. Have fun with all the money.

Matt Worley's football teams are done for the year, and the season is still pretty new.