James Laubstein has played his last snap as a Lobo.
New Mexico’s run-first backup quarterback suffered a season-ending knee injury in Saturday’s 21-10 win at Hawaii, coach Jason Eck said Monday.
The 6-foot-3, 209-pound sixth-year player went down on a play in the second quarter and was later carted off the field with what Eck said was a patellar tendon injury. He rushed for 88 yards and five touchdowns — the second-best mark on the team — in his third and final season with the Lobos.
Apologies for the bad video.
Before Laubstein was carted off, he repeatedly screamed “LET’S GO” at the rest of the team. https://t.co/OqT7SdgWQApic.twitter.com/xqzhB42EwL
— Sean Reider (@lenaweereider) October 18, 2026
Laubstein underwent surgery Monday, Eck said.
“Losing James is a big blow,” he added. “He’s been just dominating his role all year. Even that play (Laubstein was injured on), he gets a 12-yard run on his last play.
“So, we’re going to miss James. James brought a lot of leadership, a lot of juice to the team and it’s a shame to lose him.”
After initially exhausting his eligibility, Laubstein was able to return to UNM for a sixth and final year via an NCAA waiver. A former junior college athlete, he successfully contended that at least one of his seasons spent at that level shouldn’t count toward his NCAA eligibility.
Upon returning to UNM, Laubstein competed with quarterbacks Toa Fa’avae and Luke Moga for the starting job in Jack Layne’s absence. Eck announced during training camp UNM would play all three to start the season before settling on Fa’avae ahead of the Lobos’ 42-18 win over New Mexico State on Sept. 26.
Laubstein continued to play as UNM’s situational, run-first quarterback, building on a role he nearly perfected last season.
“Him being one of the oldest guys in the room, he taught me a lot,” Fa’avae said Tuesday. “(Laubstein) showed me the ropes and what to do, what not to do, how I should approach this, how I should approach that as a young quarterback. He taught me a lot of stuff I know today and always had my back, always helped me out. … It’s sad that got his season (taken) from him.”
When asked about trying to find a replacement for Laubstein and the role he played, Eck said UNM would “look at everything” this week.
“We’ll have to have some element of (the) quarterback run involved,” he added. “But we gotta be careful because now two of our top four quarterbacks (Laubstein and Layne) coming into the year are out. So you don’t wanna get to less than that, you know?”
Notes and quotes
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UNM was flagged 16 times — one penalty shy of the single-game program record – against Hawaii. How is that being addressed this week? “We gotta coach some things better with technique,” Eck said. “We gotta be better with our situational awareness of what’s going on with plays. It’s awareness, it’s technique and it’s keeping our composure. I do think they got under our skin at times and kinda turned it into personal, one-on-one things, which, that was an advantage to (Hawaii) when it went to that.”
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Eck indicated receiver Shawn Miller (concussion) is not likely to play this week: “He’s just not coming along. He’s still battling symptoms and stuff, so he has not cleared the protocol (to return). And the longer it goes on, I think the more concerning it is because I think when you (show symptoms over an extended period of time), that kind of shows that it’s really affecting you. And that calls into question, is it safe for you to play?”
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Monday, defensive end Darren Agu was named the Mountain West Defensive Player of the Week after making seven total tackles and a sack against Hawaii: “He plays very hard, he plays very physical,” Eck said. “He’s competitive. Like a lot of our guys that we gotta cover that with, we gotta be a little bit better with penalties, because he had a foolish penalty in there that we gotta improve on. But he’s played at a high level, he’s tough to block and really made an impact in that football game.”
Sean Reider covers college football and other sports for the Journal. You can reach him at sreider@abqjournal.com or via X at @lenaweereider.
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