Albuquerque Journal

So, Samuel Wasn't that Bad After All
By Rick Wright Of the Journal

Rocky Long, in resigning recently as head football coach at the University of New Mexico, said UNM needed to replace him with a miracle worker.
       If the Lobos need a miracle worker, what in the names of Harry Potter and Gandalf the Grey do the New Mexico State Aggies need?
       Maybe it just depends upon one's definition of “miracle.” By Aggie football standards, 34 victories over eight seasons surely qualify.
       So, maybe NMSU should use that miraculous invention known as the telephone to call Tony Samuel and beg him to come back.
       Or at least call to apologize.
       On Tuesday, New Mexico State announced the dismissal of Hal Mumme after four years, 11 victories and 38 defeats. Mumme's the guy who was hired to take the Aggies to that elusive (or mythical) next level after Samuel, NMSU's coach the previous eight years, was fired in 2004.
       Compared with Mumme's mark at NMSU, Samuel's record of 34-57 looks like pure wizardry.
       To be fair, no one's ever satisfied with 34-57. So, the Aggies said so long, Samuel, and took a chance on Mumme, who'd won at Iowa Wesleyan and Valdosta State. He made Kentucky competitive in the Southeastern Conference, before NCAA violations in the UK program got him fired, then rebuilt a program from scratch at Southeastern Louisiana.
       To say things didn't work out for Mumme in Las Cruces is like saying things didn't work out for Custer at Little Bighorn. Can I say I told you so? No, because I didn't.
       In 2006, the Aggies finished the season with 42-20 and 50-23 victories over Utah State and Louisiana Tech. They opened 2007 with wins over Southeastern Louisiana and UTEP, sandwiched around a 44-34 defeat to New Mexico in Albuquerque. After a 55-20 money-game loss at Auburn, they then defeated always-dangerous Arkansas-Pine Bluff 20-17.
       At that point, NMSU had won a near-miraculous five of its last seven. That September, on the occasion of the Aggies' highly competitive loss to the Lobos, I wrote that NMSU just might be gaining on UNM.
       So much for the gift of prophecy.
       What happened to the Aggies under Mumme? Essentially, it's what happened to every NMSU coach since college football went two-platoon in the mid-1960s: not enough good players to populate a good offense, a good defense and good special teams — or to overcome injuries and attrition.
       Whoever replaces Mumme at NMSU will face the same recruiting challenges he and Samuel, and their predecessors, could not meet. Is there something in the water down there? No, it's just that turning it into wine has proven difficult. The Aggies' move from the Sun Belt Conference to the Western Athletic in 2005, coinciding with Mumme's arrival, makes the job that much tougher.
       Am I serious about the Aggies rehiring Samuel? They could do worse, and so could he.
       Samuel just finished his third season at Southeast Missouri State, where's he's 11-23 — a record that shouldn't be held against him, since the Redhawks are to the Ohio Valley Conference what NMSU is to the WAC (one winning season since 1994).
       But, no, it won't be Samuel. It could be a highly successful head coach at a lower level, like West Texas A&M's Don Carthel; a coordinator from another Football Bowl Subdivision school; a former FBS head coach looking for one more rodeo.
       Just know that's one tough rodeo, pardner, whoever you may be.
       If you can top Tony Samuel, you are indeed a miracle worker.
       And you can put me down for a case of that wine.