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As the University of New Mexico football team’s five-vehicle caravan pulled out of Albuquerque, N.M., bound for Las Vegas on Monday, the flags flying at half-staff were a pointed reminder that the Lobos’ biggest challenge this season isn’t on the field.
It is often just getting on a field.
Somewhere, anywhere, as a roundabout route to Saturday’s game with Hawaii at Aloha Stadium underlines for the suddenly itinerant Lobos.
In New Mexico, COVID-19 hospitalizations set a record high for 10 days in a row and deaths have roared beyond the 1,000 mark, prompting Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to order the flags lowered in observance of the loss of lives.
If the impact of the pandemic hadn’t already hit home with the Lobos, it did two weeks ago when 10 positive virus cases inside the football program — nine players and a coach — forced the cancellation of the season-opener at Colorado State.
Last week the Lobos were to have had their home opener at University Stadium. They still got to wear their home uniforms. But instead of Danny Gonzales, a former Lobo player and coach, leading his team out on the field there for the first time as head coach, they were forced to relocate to San Jose State’s CEFCU Stadium just so they could play a game since competition was prohibited in Albuquerque due what the Mountain West said was “the continued prevalence of the COVID-19 virus in Bernalillo County.”
The 38-21 loss to the Spartans was not much of a surprise. The Lobos, under state restrictions, were not permitted gatherings of more than five people at practice and had to social distance, severely limiting their ability to work on plays.
To get around that for Saturday’s game against UH, the Lobos flew back to Albuquerque, N.M., after the San Jose State game. Then, after COVID testing Monday morning, they bused to Las Vegas, where they will headquarter, practice and test again in preparation for the Rainbow Warriors.
The Lobos, who have not announced any more infections in more than 600 tests since the October breakout, will stay in their own “bubble” of sorts in Las Vegas, practicing at Sam Boyd Stadium before heading to Honolulu on Friday.
Since Hawaii is one of the “green” or safe states by the New Mexico Department of Health scale, the Lobos will not have to quarantine upon returning home. That is if they return home. If restrictions against playing in Albuquerque remain, the Lobos could return to Las Vegas to headquarter for a move of their Nov. 14 home game against Nevada to Reno.
“It is one week at a time,” athletic director Eddie Nunez said. “It is going to be very challenging.”
If all that sounds like a lot to go through just to play a football game, it is. UNM officials will tell you that the players have worked so hard and put up with so much in this on and off season that they deserved to be afforded the opportunity to play.
And the school can surely use the money, potentially about $4.5 million as its 2020 share of the conference’s new TV agreement with Fox and CBS Sports.
Whether the Lobos, who are 16-point underdogs against UH, win any of their six remaining games remains to be seen. Whether they get to play a home game might be the bigger question.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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