Our publisher, a former high school head coach and college coach, sat down with Jason Eck, the new head coach for the University of New Mexico Lobos football program. Jason has 26 years’ experience in college football and is coming from the University of Idaho, where he led the Idaho Vandals to three straight playoff berths, including the quarterfinals. In the 22 years prior to his arrival, the Vandals totaled just two winning seasons.
Coach Eck is very enthusiastic about his family moving to New Mexico. He told us, “New Mexico has a great fan base. I’ve seen how the community rallied around their basketball team as they've had success and going to the tournament back-to-back years. I thought this was definitely a community that would rally around and wants to support a winning team...something they can be proud of. I thought a place like this needed someone who's excited to be here and could get the community excited, and transform the program. Also, I love the weather down here...being around sunshine after all those years of cold weather."
Prior to becoming Idaho’s head coach, Eck spent six seasons with the South Dakota State Jackrabbits as offensive line coach and the final three as offensive coordinator. In 2019, he was named the American Football Coaches’ Association FCS Assistant Coach of the Year. Before his time at SDSU, Eck was the offensive line coach and run-game coordinator at Montana State in 2015. The Bobcats were 18th in the FCS for rushing offense and 23rd in the FCS for sacks allowed. MSU was third in the FCS for scoring offense during his one season in Bozeman. A 1999 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Eck played on the Badgers’ 1998 Big Ten Championship team, which went on to win the Rose Bowl. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Wisconsin under head coach Barry Alvarez and later moved on to Colorado.
Coach Eck said, “Having the experiences of working with many winning coaches, I know that having a vision for players and showing belief in them is important. If they feel that you believe in them as their coach, they'll raise their level to get to your level of expectation. When I've moved to other teams during my career, I wrote down all those coaches that I've worked with before and what I thought their strengths were, and what I thought their blind spots or areas that they weren't strong in, and try to really add to my own philosophies.”
The coach talked to us about the changes in college football. “I really think that a lot of the transformations have really come probably in the last five or six years. I think there are two things that happened within a couple of years of each other that have really changed football. One is the advent of the transfer portal, where guys had immediate eligibility. They could transfer at the same level and play right away. Then, in 2021, the ‘name, image, and likeness’ provision allowed players to benefit financially from their playing. I do think it's a positive because players really just have the opportunities to do what coaches have always done.”
Coach Eck sees a lot of benefits that a winning Lobo team can have on the community. “I think something that excited me about this opportunity is being at the biggest university in the state, and I think Lobo football can really have a positive impact...not just in the university but in the city of Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico. I think there's so many things that are special about this area that maybe the average person in America doesn't know anything about. I didn't know that we have such a vibrant scene for filmmaking here. I didn't know about the Balloon Fiesta. I didn't know how great the weather here is with all the sunshine we get. I think us having success in football can really open that door to people throughout the country to know more about New Mexico, and that's one of my goals. We can invigorate this fan base and invigorate this city and see them have a lot of pride for what we're doing and get them to fill the stadium on Saturdays and really have it be a positive message of what's going on in New Mexico to help the rest of the people throughout the country learn more about what a great state this is.”
New Mexico has a great fan base.
-Coach Eck