Jul. 30—Luke Wysong glanced down at his practice jersey and came back up with a light smile, the look of a man reunited with an old friend.
“Feels good to finally have my one-five back,” the redshirt junior wide receiver said after practice on Tuesday morning.
Because, for the first time under head coach Bronco Mendenhall, players like Wysong have jersey numbers. Twenty-six Lobos were chosen by their peers to pick numbers in a ceremony — “definitely the correct word for that,” Wysong said — on Saturday night, reuniting some returners with their old, trusted digits and a handful of newcomers with fresh ones.
Mendenhall previously employed this process as the head coach at Virginia, wherein leaders representing all 11 positions chose players eligible for number selection weekly during fall camp. Another number selection session for UNM — a process Mendenhall has likened to a draft — is expected this weekend.
“Everyone knows how hard we work here,” said Wysong, who picked No. 15 — a number he’s worn previously — during Saturday’s ceremony. “So everyone who was there got to see, you know, coaches coming up (and) talking, players announcing other players, saying some really sentimental and meaningful things. It was good to hear.”
Not that there wasn’t some anxiety among players wondering if they would get a chance to call their number.
“It was a little nerve-wracking, I can’t lie,” said Bobby Arnold III, a winter transfer out of Dodge City (Kansas) Community College who was awarded No. 0 on Saturday. “Because you don’t know if your (name’s) getting picked or not. So you like, gotta trust your teammates, your leaders to see if they picked you and see you (as) one of the contributors on the team.”
The full list of players to receive jersey numbers, in numerical order:
NB Bobby Arnold III (0)
CB Noah Avinger (1)
RB…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/unm-football-numbers-nickels-notes-031300132.html
Author : Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Publish date : 2024-07-31 03:13:00
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