As hard as matters can be for the UTEP football team, and they are often harder in El Paso than other parts, they can be harder still at New Mexico State.
So it was with the 2020 COVID year. As UTEP limped through an eight-game season filled with cancellations, usually not of their own doing, the Aggies shuttered completely in the fall.
And this wasn’t a building year like UAB had last decade when they shut down football for two years but kept practicing. For more than 400 days, NMSU football didn’t have a workout, didn’t put on a jersey, didn’t hit a soul and didn't really exist.