Jason Eck
Also coached below FBS: Idaho 2022–24
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 0-1
2025Rate BowlL 17-20
As of Fri Oct 23
- Last gameW 21-10 at Hawai'i Sat Oct 17
- This season5-1 won 3 straight
- On track for10-2 regular season
- Nextvs. North Dakota State Sat Oct 24
- Stature120th of 138 FBS programs
What the result changed
- Playoff odds 4% → 6% CFB Zeitgeist forecast, before and after
Saturday: vs. North Dakota State
Sat Oct 24, 10 pm ET 
· North Dakota State is 6-1 · First meeting between Eck and Tim Polasek as head coaches · New Mexico’s chance to win: 65% (the site’s model)
His week
3 stories this week →
The headlines, Oct 18–23 from 2 outlets
New Mexico LobosJason Eck Named to Paul “Bear” Bryant 2026 Coach of the Year Award watch listWed Oct 21
InForumMcFeely: Have Bison fans warmed to Jason Eck or is he still Public Enemy No. 1?Wed Oct 21- New Mexico LobosLobo Football: Jason Eck Media Availability (10/19/26)Tue Oct 20
Offense: 64th of 138 per play. Defense: 7th.
6 games left
- Sat Oct 24vs. North Dakota State (6-1)65%
- Sat Oct 31at San José State (4-3)MW+84%
- Fri Nov 6at Nevada (2-4)CBS Sports Network87%
- Sat Nov 14vs. UNLV (4-3)77%
- Sat Nov 21at Wyoming (4-3)
85% - Sat Nov 28vs. Air Force (5-1)65%
Percent: New Mexico’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
How the season got here
Where New Mexico stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
- Oct 12–18W 21-10 at Hawai'i3 headlines · 64th of 138
- Oct 5–11No game1 headline · 83rd of 138Lobo Football: Jason Eck Media Availability (10/5/26) New Mexico Lobos
- Sep 28–Oct 4W 61-7 vs. UTEP0 headlines
- Sep 21–27 · rebuiltW 42-18 at New Mexico State2 headlines · 76th of 138Jason Eck: New Mexico QB Toa Fa'avae is 'our guy' moving forward Albuquerque Journal
- Sep 14–20 · rebuiltL 6-14 at Oklahoma4 headlines · 67th of 138Big personality and big things for Jason Eck at New Mexico
ESPN - Sep 7–13 · rebuiltW 70-7 vs. Mercyhurst1 headline · 92nd of 138
Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
Watch the biggest plays from New Mexico’s games, ranked by how much each moved the chance to win.
3 stories about him this week
Sat Oct 24: North Dakota State
72nd of 100 FBS head coaches · from 2 outlets and r/CFB
McFeely: Have Bison fans warmed to Jason Eck or is he still Public Enemy No. 1?
InForum Oct 21 · 1 outlet
What they’re talking about
Press conference and quotes2 storiesrising
26 stories about him this season
from 13 outlets and r/CFB
A to Z Sports +1 Sep 16 · 2 outlets
What they’re talking about
Press conference and quotes7 storiesrising
- New Mexico LobosJason Eck Media Availability (8/31/26) - New Mexico Lobos - Official Athletics WebsiteSep 1
- New Mexico LobosLobo Football: Jason Eck Media Availability (9/7/26)Sep 8
- New Mexico LobosLobo Football: Jason Eck Media Availability (9/14/26) - New Mexico Lobos - Official Athletics WebsiteSep 15
- New Mexico LobosLobo Football: Jason Eck Media Availability (10/5/26)Oct 6
- New Mexico LobosLobo Football: Jason Eck Media Availability (10/12/26)Oct 13
Quarterback and depth chart3 stories
- Albuquerque Journal[Reider] New Mexico head coach Jason Eck said he has not named a starting quarterback and plans to play multiple in the Lobos’ opener against Central Michigan. QB Jack Layne will also be out for the year after getting surgery.Aug 27
Mountain West ConnectionWithout Jack Layne, Which QB and Offense will show for Jason Eck and the Lobos?Aug 25- Albuquerque JournalJason Eck: New Mexico QB Toa Fa'avae is 'our guy' moving forwardSep 26
Profile and feature2 stories
Game preview2 stories
34 stories about him across 2 seasons
Could another school hire him? What has he said?
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Oct 23.
In his own words
Awaiting signal — no quotes collected from this staff yet this cycle.
Hires into jobs like this
Hired into 6–6, Regional Program V. Rough match, not calibrated yet — ranked on what the job inherited alone. Coaches hired into this same job aren’t used as comps.
- Bronco Mendenhall20245–7+0.9
- Danny Gonzales20202–5+0.0
- Bob Davie20124–9-1.1
- George Barlow20111–7-5.5
- Mike Locksley20091–11-4.5
- Rocky Long19983–9-2.3
- Dennis Franchione19923–8+0.6
- Mike Sheppard19870–11-3.3
Poach watch
This winter
Our poach model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, his program, his pay and his background. Ranked against the 137 FBS head coaches this season. The zone words describe the market’s interest; none of them says he is leaving.
What drives his number
The biggest factors in his profile, each against the typical FBS head coach today. The games he has left are priced into the number, not listed here.
- ▲ HigherHis team is 5-1, outscoring opponents by 29.2 points a game
- ▲ HigherAge 49 · neither at his alma mater nor in the state he was born in
- ▲ HigherPaid $1.1 million in 2025, the 32nd percentile of published FBS head-coach pay
How good is this number? It ranks a head coach who leaves for another head-coaching job ahead of one who stays 78 to 82% of the time, and its average came within a point of the share who actually left. What it can’t do
Tested on every FBS head coach from 2012 through 2025, each season scored by a model fit only on the seasons before it. From three games on, given one coach who left for a head-coaching job elsewhere or an NFL coordinator job and one who stayed, it ranked the one who left ahead 79 to 82% of the time; in a season’s first two games, 78%. Its average chance came within a point of the share who actually left. It counts a move a coach makes while he still holds the job; when his school ends it, that doesn’t count, even if another school then hires him.
- The live number prices the games he has left with the power model’s ratings from this season. The test priced them with each team’s rating from the season before, because ratings made during past seasons were not kept, so this live version could not be replayed.
- Programs new to FBS have no FBS record before this season in the data it reads, so their coaches are scored without one.
- It is frozen: it learns nothing from 2026 until a deliberate refit.
- A coach hired in December needs his background (age, alma mater, the state he was born in) added before his first game, or he shows as not rated.
Coaching career
Followed Bronco Mendenhall (2024).
| Season | 2025 | 2026 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||
| Record | 9-4 | 5-1 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | |||
| OC | Luke Schleusner | Luke Schleusner | |
| DC | Spence Nowinsky | Spence Nowinsky | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||
| Offense | 51 | 44 | |
| Defense | 80 | 95 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||
| 1st-down pass% | 41.4 | 38.2 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 30.2 | 29.5 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 50.0 | 47.6 | |
Outperforms his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
Brings in smaller-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits younger transfers than most — more of a development bet.
Coach of the Year: Mountain West Coach of the Year (2025)
AI Narratives — “New Mexico's Late Surge” and 5 more on the team page.
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
2-0 against his rivals.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for.
749 run and pass snaps at New Mexico, 2025–2025, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
How good is he so far?
Four numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His one ranked New Mexico class of his own finished #87 nationally.
His class — he had the full signing cycleTransition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 100 of 115 players. The other 15 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 24% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2025–2026Counting players who have since left: 29% of the 131 arrivals we can classify came through the portal.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 14 of 53 signees (26%) across his 2025–2026 tenure, drawn from 12 states in all. Next: TX (10).
47% of his signees come from CA and its 3 border states (AZ 7, OR 3, NV 1).
- median hometown distance
- 668 mi
- within 100 mi
- 9%
- within 500 mi
- 28%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 29%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 1 of them himself.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | R7.36 | Keyshawn James-Newby | Defensive Edge |  Philadelphia Eagles |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.