Arizona Wildcats get early peek at New Mexico as Lobos kick off season vs. Montana State

Most of the time, college football teams prepare for the season-opening game by looking at the film of their opponent from the previous season.

If a team has a new coaching staff, the opposing coaches will more often than not study concepts and formations from previous stops to have a better feel.

As No. 21-ranked Arizona prepares to host New Mexico next Saturday at Arizona Stadium to kick off the Brent Brennan era and the most anticipated UA football season in recent years, the Wildcats will have the luxury of digesting one game despite the Lobos also having a first-year head coach, Bronco Mendenhall.

New Mexico faces Montana State in Albuquerque on Saturday at 1 p.m. on FS1 as part of the four-game slate for Week 0 of the college football season. The Lobos are 13.5-point underdogs to the FCS school from Bozeman, Montana; it’s the largest margin for an FCS school over an FBS program in at least 15 years, according to CBS Sports. MSU enters this season as one of the favorites to win the Big Sky Conference and the FCS national championship. New Mexico hasn’t lost to an FCS team since 2011.

The rebuilding Lobos were voted to finish 11th in the Mountain West preseason poll. Mendenhall, a former head coach at Virginia and BYU, replaced current Arizona linebackers coach and special teams coordinator Danny Gonzales, who was dismissed after posting an 11-32 record in four seasons at New Mexico. No. 21 Arizona is currently 31.5-point favorites for its season opener against New Mexico, according to Action Network.

The Wildcats will be overwhelming favorites against the Lobos in Tucson, and most of the UA coaches believe Arizona has another advantage in watching UNM play on Saturday. Arizona defensive coordinator Duane Akina “would prefer to have” New Mexico play a week prior to the season opener.

“You gotta get a feel for the personnel and match it,” Akina said. “I think it’s good we can see where they’re at when it’s brand-new staff. I like there’s a game.”

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Arizona quarterbacks coach Lyle Moevao said, “Any time there’s a game before yours in the first week of the season, it always gives you something more recent.”

Meanwhile, New Mexico is left to study Arizona’s offensive concepts from Brennan’s seven-year career at San Jose State, offensive coordinator Dino Babers’ play-calling from his head-coaching tenures at Syracuse and Eastern Illinois, and Arizona’s offense from last season “and try to figure out what’s going to show up” or “scour anything off the internet that’s recent from practices,” Moevao said.

“Until you actually see that game, there’s always going to be that question mark in terms of scouting another team,” said Moevao. “To be able to have that in our hands going into the first game will definitely be something we use.”

As for Babers?

“I look at it totally different,” he said. “I look at it like they’re getting an opportunity to play a full football game, and the most growth is between the first and second football game every year. They’re going to get an opportunity to see themselves play (and) they’ll be able to critique it. Kids learn more from watching themselves than watching others, and they’ll have immense growth from whatever we see on that tape to what shows up at Arizona Stadium.”

Extra points

• At a gathering on Friday at Arizona Stadium to debut new concession items sold at football games this fall, UA athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois said the Wildcats have sold the most season tickets before a season opener since 2018.
• Among the new food items that will be sold at Arizona Stadium this season: A Big 12 Dog (a footlong hotdog with nacho cheese, bacon crumbles and crispy onions) and elote bites (fried corn fritters with baja sauce, cilantro and Tajin seasoning). “Si Charro” will debut “Sweet Ride Nachos” (cinnamon-sugar nacho chips, horchata whipped cream, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, crumbled cookie topping and a mini churro), Charro tamale bowl (chicken tomatillo tamale with enchilada sauce, lettuce, pico salsa, chipotle cream sauce and beans) and “Los Gatos Wild Sauce,” a hot sauce in collaboration with the UA that will be used for the restaurant’s version of the Sonoran hotdog. Rudy’s Barbecue chain will become a new vendor at Arizona Stadium this season.