Hounds need huge upset to avoid 0-3 hole

PORTALES — A Greyhound football team that gained national recognition last year for nursing a lead and keeping the ball out of the other team’s hands finds itself at 0-2, and so far no lead to nurse in 120 minutes of forgettable action.

Eastern New Mexico will now welcome ... No. 1-ranked, defending national champion Texas A&M-Commerce.

Kicked while they’re down, or a chance to get up? Second-year ENMU coach Kelley Lee is preaching the opportunity for the latter.

“You can go through your whole college career,” Lee said, “and not get to face the No.1 team or the national champs, especially at your own stadium.”

The Lions (2-0), Lee said, bring back nearly everybody from last season’s national champ, though the exception is pretty notable in Luis Perez. The task for filling the shoes of last year’s Harlon Hill winner goes to junior Preston Wheeler.

“He’s done really, really well,” Commerce coach Colby Carthel said of Wheeler, who has completed 48-of-79 passes for 483 with four touchdowns and three picks. “He takes care of the football. He had two picks last week, but they weren’t really his fault. He’s done really well. He’s not going to be Luis, he’s not trying to be Luis. He has a different skill set. What we have to do is improve the surrounding cast around him.”

Wheeler hasn’t so far unleashed the quantity of home run balls Perez was known for, but he’s made the plays when the Lions have needed them. Commerce came just a nanometer from a Week 1 upset to Texas A&M-Kingsville, down 36-30 in double overtime before Wheeler completed a fourth-and-7 pass to Marquis Wimberly.

The Lions were fortunate in two regards — first because Kingsville bobbled the snap on their double-overtime extra point attempt, and second because they got to learn and not put an L on their record.

“I enjoyed what that game presented for us,” said Carthel, son of former ENMU coach Don Carthel. “You cannot create that adversity. ... To see a new team face that adversity, down 16-0 to win in double overtime, you learn a lot more about your team in that setting than you do a 48-6 victory.”

The Greyhounds hope they learned how to avoid a repeat of last year’s 51-22 drubbing at the hands of the Lions.

“The one thing Kingsville did is they got a lot of pressure,” Lee said. “They were able to make some big plays downfield. But when you watch that film, you see a typical first game. The thing with Kingsville is they weren’t intimidated. They came in looking to win.”

The biggest issue for ENMU has been valuing the football. The Greyhound game is ball control, and turnovers and early-drive penalties make that a non-starter.

“When we get one of those 15-yarders,” Lee said, “they’re drive-killers. It’s almost a punt. We can line up three plays of seven yards, which are great plays, and still be short.

“I think we had a penalty or a turnover on every drive in the first half. We don’t have those in the second half, and we score (21 points). It’s kind of an obvious fix. We’ve just got to do it.”

Lee, who’s known Carthel for years and works with him annually at offseason camps, said the Lions are basically what every LSC program should aspire to be when they play outside the conference.

Carthel doesn’t think the Greyhounds are a bad representative for the LSC either.

“They’re a lot better team than their record indicates,” Carthel said. “They were a playoff team last year in my books. They should have been a playoff team. Their only two losses were to a national champion, us, and the LSC champion (Midwestern State).”

“It’s a trap game for us. We’ve really got to be on our toes for a hard-fought football game Saturday.”