New Mexico State Introduces Snack Attack Offense

It's come to this.

Due to the recession and a subsequent budget crunch, New Mexico State's football team is requesting that fans donate snacks to the team. That's not a joke, not a point of satire meant to illustrate the difference between playing at a Big Six conference and being a member of the WAC. Nope, that's the unvarnished truth.

According to the AP, "New Mexico State's budget-conscious football staff distributed an e-mail this week asking fans to donate after-practice or late-night snacks for hungry players." Why are they doing this? To help close a $1.5 million budget gap. That's an awful lot of snacks.

So far players have received peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, watermelons, and, wait for it, trail mix from helpful fans. Hopefully, the donated snack fuel will help players finish games with more staying power. Last year's team was 3-9 overall, and a woeful 1-7 in the WAC. And that was back when the football team could afford snacks! Is this the sign of the college football apocalypse? I think so. But it doesn't have to be a lasting sign. We at FanHouse can also help the football team save money. Here's how.

As a preliminary point, more ridicule. I understand that tough times call for tough measures, but how much money can snacks really cost the football team? $30,000 a year, maybe? Maybe. So they only have to eliminate 50 other identical spending issues and the budget issue is fixed. This is the rough equivalent of a family deciding they're going to make the mortgage payment from now on by cutting out toilet paper.

And so, they've made the program look ridiculous.

You don't think a coach recruiting against New Mexico State might mention this, do you?

Coach: "Aw sure, you can head out to New Mexico State. But, lemme tell you something, they can't even afford to feed their players. They got fans giving them snacks." I can see a mother shaking her head right now, "Child, please," she'll say, "You're not going to be an Aggie. They can't even feed you."

And she'll be right.

Not to mention, do I even need to say it, you're trusting random fans to feed your football team. In this day and age when some people are completely crazy, is this really smart? Granted the result could be funny -- After all, how long could it be until a fraternity at New Mexico puts the pledge class up to loading snacks with ex-lax and delivering it to the Aggies? -- but it could also be scary. What if a crazy fan put something dangerous in the food? What if someone made pot brownies and the entire team violated the next drug testing? (This would be a convenient excuse for some guys.) It's just a dumb decision, one that doesn't even sound good in theory. This will now end the part of the column where I spend 15 seconds demonstrating why New Mexico State officials are idiots.

After all, I don't want to give the impression that I'm not sympathetic to the plight faced by the team. A life without snacks? What is this, Red China? Russia in the midst of the German invasion? Plainly, a football player divided from his snacks cannot stand.

Or tackle.

So here are nine other revenue saving measures that New Mexico State can adopt to tighten up the finances without requiring fans to provide snacks.

1. Make shoulder pads out of recycled Coke cans.

Lots of schools get pennies back on their soda dollars. Why not get shoulder pads instead? Sure, the pads would be brittle and break. But then when New Mexico State's quarterback gets sacked for the 19th time at Ohio State, he can have a legitimate excuse not to come back in.

2. Bring back Pistol Pete and auction off his pistol advertisement to the NRA or a gun manufacturer.

Proving that they are as adept at mascot imagery as they are at snack-wrangling, New Mexico State introduced a sideline mascot named Pistol Pete. Only a few years later they replaced his pistol with a lasso. And changed Pistol Pete's name to simply ... Pete.

3. Give up football and focus on men's basketball.

New Mexico state has had four winning seasons in the past 40 years. During that time they've won a single conference title, in 1978.

What would really be missing?

4. Based on my strong knowledge of Spanish, I believe Las Cruces is Spanish for "The Crosses."

The city's name owes its history to Roman times. While he was still hanging on the cross, Jesus was asked where he would least like to return to life.

"Las Cruces, New Mexico," He said.

Leading to a great fundraising idea. We already have Jump Rope for Heart. I bring you the newest fundraising craze: Who Can Carry a Cross the Longest in a New Mexico Desert?

5. Current Aggie fight song:

"Aggies, oh Aggies
We'll win this game or know the reason why!
And when we win this game
We'll buy a keg of booze"

Revised Aggie fight song:

"Aggies, oh Aggies
We'll win this game or know the reason why!
And when we win this game
We'll buy a keg of <insert beer sponsor name here>



6. Replace football coaches with chemical engineering professors.

Wait, this already happened in 2008?

Per Wikipedia: "The former quarterback Charley Johnson, who was then a chemial engineering professor at New Mexico State, was appointed as interim head coach during the search for a replacement."

7. Auction off the Aggies nickname to a corporation.

The only thing lamer than one school being nicknamed the Aggies is more than one school being nicknamed the Aggies.

Do you see how awesome this nickname is? It's short for agriculture! And agriculture is the 14 billionth coolest word in the English language. Right between photosynthesis and caterwaul.

What's even worse than this? Your top rival, New Mexico, is the lobos, which is perhaps the coolest nickname on the planet.

8. In a surprise move, double the recruiting budget for football. Emblazoned at the top of the page on all recruiting literature will be this phrase, "New Mexico State: We are actually in America."

Beneath that in smaller print, "You can drink the water (but you have to bring your own snacks)!"

9. Bring back Nazi POWs and have them work on farms growing snacks for the football team.

Some people have forgotten that Las Cruces put Nazi POWs to work on farms during World War II. Why did they ever allow these people to leave? The absolute least they could do for, after causing the death of tens of millions of people, is provide snacks for a hungry WAC football team.

10. New Mexico State plays at Ohio State on Halloween.

So the Aggies are already auctioning off football games to help fill the athletic department coffers.

Talk about two programs passing in the night. I think Ohio State football owns Nabisco and Kellogg. Meanwhile, the Aggies are begging their fans for half-eaten packages of wheat thins.

If every Ohio State student doesn't come dressed as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or other snack food, I've lost even more respect for Ohio State.