Entering its season opening game at North Carolina State University Saturday, the big question surrounding UNM's football team will be if the new and inexperienced backfield can duplicate the success of last year's backfield.
Last season, the Lobos boasted a strong and experienced running attack with seniors Jarrod Baxter, Holmon Wiggins and Javier Hanson taking on the majority of the workload.
Baxter, who was drafted in the fifth round of the NFL draft by the Houston Texans this year, rushed for 907 yards and 11 touchdowns as a senior.
Wiggins totaled 1,883 rushing yards in his UNM career and led the team in punt returning in 2000 and 2001.
This year, the Lobos will see some fresh faces at the tailback position. Redshirt freshmen Dontrell Moore, Tony Frazier and senior Quincy Wright are all competing for playing time.
Moore had been the leading candidate to start this weekend, but was sidelined with a knee injury in practice early this week.
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As a result, Wright was named starting tailback for Saturday's game.
In his first three seasons with the Lobos, Wright has played mostly on special teams. But the 5' 10", 185-pound back does boast an impressive yards per carry ratio with 164 yards on just 14 career carries.
Head coach Rocky Long said Wright may not be a big running back but he does possess "great quickness and great speed."
If Wright can't get the job done, Frazier will be waiting in the wings. Frazier is also a small running back, listed at 5' 6" and 182 pounds with quickness and speed but no Division I experience.
With all of the newcomers at the running back position you might expect the Lobos to rely more on their passing game. But that's not necessarily the case, Long said.
"We would like to be a 50-50 team where teams can't determine our tendencies," he said "We're going to try and run the ball 50 percent of the time and throw it 50 percent of the time but if the running game is ineffective then with an experienced quarterback and experienced receivers we would throw it, but not to begin with."
Moore, a Roswell High School graduate, will stay in Albuquerque this weekend to rest the knee that sidelined him this week. Long said he's optimistic about Moore returning to the starting line-up.
"He's a lot better than he was earlier in the week but he's not going at 100 percent," he said.
The Lobos' game against the Wolfpack takes them to North Carolina for the first time in the school's 104-year history.
The last time the Lobos had 13 games was in 1997 when the team went 9-4 and earned a trip to the Insight.com Bowl.
N.C. State is lead by outstanding junior quarterback Philip Rivers. The Heisman Award candidate has passed for 5,640 yards in just two years at the Atlantic Coast Conference school.
The game, which kicks off at 2:38 Mountain time, will be televised on KRQE-TV, Ch. 13, and broadcast on KKOB, 770 AM.
