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Dec. 15—A little over a year ago, Jerry Kill strode off the bus on a blistering cold day in Detroit wearing a dark gray and white serape poncho. It was a gift, Kill made it clear at the time, from somebody he was sure didn’t think New Mexico State’s head coach would ever actually wear.
So he did. He wore it before and after a 24-19 win in the 2022 Quick Lane Bowl that effectively served as the Aggies’ national reintroduction. He wore it during pregame walks across the hot, dusty lots around Aggie Memorial Stadium in August. On road trips. At fundraising events. The serape ponchos changed. Kill didn’t.
Friday, he sat down at the dais for a press conference ahead of Saturday’s New Mexico Bowl — this time, wearing a red and white serape poncho.
“Everybody always says, ‘hey coach, why you wear a poncho all the time?'” he said. “Well, I don’t wear it all the time — I gotta guy who started it, put it on my desk and said you’d never wear it. Ever since then, he just keeps making me ponchos, okay?
“But you wanna know something — hey, this is our culture,” he said. “I don’t care who you are, where you’re at, if you’re a Lobo, if you’re an Aggie. This is our culture. This is who we are.”
In previewing Saturday’s bowl game — played in rival New Mexico’s home stadium — Kill didn’t downplay UNM and NMSU’s rivalry. After all, he’s set to get another tattoo because the Aggies beat both the Lobos and UTEP in the same season.
But he made it crystal clear: NMSU making University Stadium home for a weekend shouldn’t be viewed as simply another facet to the rivalry.
“It helps all of us,” he said. “And so I’m gonna make it perfectly clear: This is a great game for our state to emphasize football. We have football here, y’know? And we have good football here in New Mexico. The only way to improve it is to win games and be on TV and…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/helps-us-why-jerry-kill-040100013.html
Author : Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Publish date : 2023-12-16 04:01:00
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