New Mexico State football has found ingredients for winning culture

It’s never been easy for the New Mexico State football program. A few good years here and there, but never any real consistency.

That’s what makes what happened Saturday even more special and remarkable for the program and for the longtime fans of the program. New Mexico State won its 10th football game of the season on Saturday with a 20-17 win against fellow bowl-eligible opponent, Jacksonville State — a game that was nearly lost after the Aggies led for much of the game.

For the first time since 1960, that’s right 63 years, the Aggies have won double-digit games in a season.

There’s been hope before. The Aggies won eight games in 1965. The great Jim Bradley, who was a successful high school coach in New Mexico, had some competitive teams in the 1970s. Jim Hess won 11 games in 1992-93 after the team had won 10 combined games from 1984-91.

Tony Samuel had one of the program’s best teams ever in 2002, a seven-win squad that nearly toppled North Texas for the Sun Belt title. But despite seven wins, the Aggies’ name wasn’t called to play in the postseason.

Hal Mumme and DeWayne Martin tried but couldn’t find consistency. Doug Martin won a bowl game in 2017 but struggled to maintain success after that.

The flame of hope all faded under previous coaches. Now the Aggies have head coach Jerry Kill, who has brought national attention to a program that is headed to its second straight bowl game and will play for a Conference championship Friday against 12-0 Liberty.

The Aggies, who are receiving votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, have won 17 games in the past two years and have a chance to win two more, which would make it 19 in two years.

The Aggies last did that in 1959-60 when the program won 19 games. That was also the last time, NMSU made back-to-back bowl games.

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The 2017 bowl team was the first postseason the program had seen since 1960. But now, Kill has the program at another level. The Aggies trust each other, they play defense at a high level and they win close games, characteristics that previous teams lacked.

Quarterback Diego Pavia is the leader on offense. He is a bulldozer of a quarterback, plays hard and gets the tough yard when needed and he’s a solid passer, who gets multiple receivers involved.

Pavia reminds me of former Aggies quarterback Buck Pierce, who was underrated and who played in the Canadian Football League for many years. Pavia, like Pierce, is a winner and someone you want to lead into a game.

Pavia showed his grit in Saturday's win versus Jacksonville State with a run and a long pass to Trent Hudson to set up the game-winning field goal. That came after a poor second half, for the most part, in which he fumbled and threw two interceptions.

That's the kind of leader he's grown into.

The NMSU defense has been outstanding and having seen the team a handful of times this year, I can’t say it's one or two guys but rather the entire defense. This defense has each other’s back and different people step up at key times.

The coaching staff at NMSU has created a winning culture at NMSU and the players have bought in. Make no doubt, the Aggies are for real this season and don’t be surprised if they win their final two games of the season.

Even if that doesn’t happen, the tone has been set in Las Cruces.

Surely, other programs will come after Kill to coach their program and could also come after some assistant coaches.

But Kill has raised the bar at NMSU and if he stays, expect the program to continue to trend upward. Even if he were to leave to reboot another program — I have no idea if he wants to or not — this is a program that appears no longer interested in being the status quo of previous years.

The school wants the Aggies to be a consistent winner.

More: NMSU holds off Gamecocks New Mexico State caps regular season with home win vs. Jacksonville State

Felix F. Chavez can be reached at fchavez@elpasotimes.com; @Fchavezeptimes on X (Formerly Twitter)

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: New Mexico State football has found ingredients for winning culture