New Mexico State Football Prediction: Game-By-Game Predictions for the Aggies in 2020

Two years ago, Doug Martin told me he inherited a "dumpster fire" New Mexico State program in 2013. After four straight years with three or fewer wins, Martin led the Aggies to seven wins in 2017 and their first bowl game since 1960. Two years later, it's no longer a dumpster fire program with bare-minimum institutional support, but New Mexico State has returned to its losing ways and there's little reason to believe they're on the verge of turning the corner again soon.

Both sides of the ball were miserable again last year and Martin turned to the JUCO ranks for a quick fix, signing a whopping 12 JUCO players during the early period, including quarterback Jonah Johnson, who's expected to compete with freshman Weston Eget in fall camp to run Martin's Air Raid system that flourished in 2017 but has since sputtered. 

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"We have to play better defense, overall, especially in the secondary," Martin said this winter. "It's a place we have not played well the last two years. We have to get better there in terms of tackling, supporting the run and pass defense. We have to make strides to get back to where we were in 2017. We have fallen off offensively since 2017 because of a lack of ability to throw the deep ball and push the ball down the field, but defensively, we have really fallen off."

That's putting it kindly; Frank Spaziani's unit hasn't stopped the run, stopped the pass, forced turnovers, generated pressure… Thankfully, there's some talent and experience in the front seven, led by senior linebacker Rashie Hodge Jr. (above) and rising sophomore linebacker Devin Richardson. 

Ranked 126th in the HERO Sports Preseason College Football Rankings, New Mexico State has five of the worst FBS teams on their schedule, along with FCS Texas Southern. There are winnable games and enough opportunities to win four games.