Site Map | Archives

Home › Sports › LoboZone

University of New Mexico football team's gunners look for the big hit

By Phill Casaus
Thursday, August 16, 2007

The Lobos' Blake Ligon keeps the mood light on the sidelines during practice. Ligon is a gunner for UNM's special teams, one of the first players to make contact with a return man on punts. Sometimes, that can mean monstrous hits. "That's the glory right there," he said, "either pinning 'em back or just killing 'em."

Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

Tribune

The Lobos' Blake Ligon keeps the mood light on the sidelines during practice. Ligon is a gunner for UNM's special teams, one of the first players to make contact with a return man on punts. Sometimes, that can mean monstrous hits. "That's the glory right there," he said, "either pinning 'em back or just killing 'em."

The Lobos' Blake Ligon keeps the mood light on the sidelines during practice. Ligon is a gunner for UNM's special teams, one of the first players to make contact with a return man on punts. Sometimes, that can mean monstrous hits. "That's the glory right there," he said, "either pinning 'em back or just killing 'em."

Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

Tribune

The Lobos' Blake Ligon keeps the mood light on the sidelines during practice. Ligon is a gunner for UNM's special teams, one of the first players to make contact with a return man on punts. Sometimes, that can mean monstrous hits. "That's the glory right there," he said, "either pinning 'em back or just killing 'em."

Fan photo day

Saturday: Gates open at 1 p.m.; scrimmage follows from 2-4 p.m., with players available for autographs afterward.

Site: University Stadium

Cost: Admission is free.

Also: The first 3,000 fans each will receive a free hot dog.

Season opener: Sept. 1 at UTEP

Home opener: Sept. 8 vs. Aggies

College football is nothing if not scripted.

Each play, each movement, each practice period, each week, is sifted and measured, planned and re-planned. It's a regimented milieu that usually doesn't promote freelance artists, who often paint themselves into a corner - more accurately, a rectangle - called the bench.

But then there are guys like Marcus Smith and Blake Ligon, players who have experienced and earned the heady whiff of improvisation: a fast, violent kind of jazz.

They are the University of New Mexico's "gunners" - the free-roaming ends who lead the charge when the Lobos punt the football.

Their job is liberty, responsibility, contact.

"It's kind of nerve-racking, because you know you're the first one down there and a lot of it's riding on you," says Ligon, a junior safety. "You can kind of do what you want to get down there, and (it's) how you feel like making the tackle."

Adds Smith: "There are rules and things like that, but it's basically running and hitting somebody."

Imagine a basketball fast break with the potential for concussions, and you've got a pretty good idea about the scene that awaits Ligon and Smith when they line up near the sidelines for a punt. One-on-one - and sometimes, one-on-two - they hand-fight and battle their opponents all the way down the field, racing as fast as they can toward a punt returner.

In the perfect world, the punt hangs high and handsome, and the brave returner refuses to fair catch. If all that happens, the hit of a lifetime is possible.

"If we're free, and they don't fair-catch the ball," says Smith, emitting a wolflike grin, "we can put their teeth in the back of their mouth."

The Lobos are depending upon more than a couple of trips to the dentist's office for their foes this season. Special teams play is key to a program that continues to break in a new offense and will depend on field position throughout the season.

A big moment, particularly from the UNM punt-cover group that Smith and Ligon lead, might change a game or two. And for the Lobos, a game or two might change a season.

Smith, a 6-foot-2, 214-pound wide receiver from San Diego, has already done that on offense for New Mexico - he's the Lobos' go-to pass-catcher, having grabbed nine touchdown passes in 2006. Oddly, in the game's newfound diva position - thank you, Terrell Owens and Chad Johnson - he exhibits a toughness more often found at linebacker.

"Even though I'm a key player on offense, I feel like I should contribute any way I can," says Smith, a senior who's been a gunner for three years. "If I can get down there first and make the tackle, that's what I want to do."

That kind of attitude may help him in the future. Head coach Rocky Long says Smith's NFL prospects likely are helped by his willingness to mix it up on special teams.

"All the guys who aren't first- or second-round draft choices," the coach says, "have to show a willingness or ability on special teams or (NFL) teams aren't going to give them a chance at the next level."

For his part, Ligon worries only about the college level. A junior safety, he'll be a Lobo for awhile longer. And while he has much potential on the defensive side of the ball, he's aiming high at the gunner spot.

"Marcus is a little faster than me, so he normally gets the chance to get the shot," says Ligon, who grew up in San Angelo, Texas. "But I pick up the fumble. That's not a bad way to go. I kind of want to get the shot so bad. That's the glory right there - either pinning Õem back or just killing Õem."

Well, not killing Õem, exactly. Just hitting Õem hard enough to displace a tooth or two.

That, say the Lobos' gunners, is definitely in the script.

Kicking woes: Long says he's generally pleased with what his special teams units have done thus far in two-a-day drills, but he's concerned about the Lobos' kickers.

"I'm disappointed in our kickers," he said. "So far, we're not showing much consistency kicking off the ball, we're not consistently making field goals."

The Lobos have a gaping hole at kicker, if only because the departed Kenny Byrd was so dependable. He made 19 of 23 field goals in 2006, and was 15-of-15 inside the 39-yard line.

Other notes: Two Lobos - Ivan Hernandez and Daryl Jones - limped off the practice field Wednesday night. Jones, a 6-foot-3 sophomore wide receiver injured a toe during a passing drill. Hernandez, a 6-6 sophomore offensive lineman, left the field after hearing a popping noise in his knee. . . . Mike Love, the promising UNM tailback from Rio Rancho High, has still not returned to practice after leaving the team to attend to personal matters. Greg Remington, a UNM associate athletics director in charge of media relations, said Love might miss the 2007 season. Love ran for 1,954 yards his senior year (2005) at Rio Rancho. He played in two games as a UNM freshman in 2006, but was awarded a redshirt season after a knee injury. . . . Offensive lineman Eric Cook, a 6-6, 312-pound sophomore from Cibola High, had surgery on his hand Wednesday and missed practice. He is expected to be on the field Friday. . . . The Lobos' final two-a-day practice session will be Friday.