New Mexico State Football: Living the independent life

New Mexico State football returns to life as an FBS independent after four years in the Sun Belt. What lies in store for the Aggies in 2018?

At the end of the 2017 season, the Sun Belt and two of its members followed through on a plan to part ways. Once the NCAA cleared conferences to hold championship games with only 10 members, the Sun Belt no longer needed to hang on to Idaho or New Mexico State as football-only members.

Idaho found a new conference home by dropping down to the FCS and joining the Big Sky. For the Vandals, it made geographic and competitive sense to become the first Division I school to transition downward after previously making the leap to the FBS.

That didn’t make as much sense for New Mexico State, however. Without any suitors at either the FBS or FCS level, the Aggies reverted back to independence. Prior to joining the Sun Belt in 2014, New Mexico State had a transition year as an independent after the death of the WAC. Before that, the Aggies were an independent program for a decade between 1962 and 1971 after the death of the Border Conference and before joining the Missouri Valley Conference.

In other words, New Mexico State has some experience with forced independence. Doug Martin‘s team went bowling last year for the first time since a trip to the Sun Bowl at the end of the 1960 season. Can the Aggies break through to get back to the postseason in 2018, and do so for the first time in program history as an independent?