ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – During the Lobos first game of the season, safety Tavion Combs led the defense with 11 total tackles and also blocked a field goal. It was only Combs’ first game back from a torn ACL suffered last season, and he believes that indicates he is in store for a monster final season.

“That’s my goal for every single time that I wake up and open my eyes in the morning, is just try and dominate the day and really excite the day and get better,” said Combs. “If you can stack the days each and every day, you’re going to have some type of progress, success individually. I had a lot of fun being able to go out there, make tackles and then make plays. It was blessed.”

While Combs had a stellar individual game, the rest of the secondary did not. The Lobos gave up multiple long touchdown passes and were exposed in multiple areas. Combs believes that having results like that week one will help the defense overall the rest of the season.

“It gave us an eye opener on things that we need to get cleaned up in practice and just overall in general, something that needs to get cleaned up because in order to have a successful team you need to have a defense that communicates well and goes out there and plays all out. In order to do that you need to play football without thinking.”

Story continues below:

Meanwhile the Lobo soccer team is welcoming a power-5 opponent on Thursday night. Colorado comes to New Mexico after multiple big wins and has received top 25 votes.

“We want to be the best, we want to go to the NCAA tournament, we want to play NCAA tournament teams, we want that experience and the only way to do it is to put yourself on the field against the best in the country,” said head coach Heather Dyche. “I think from those games you see who you are. You see where the grit is, you see where people can adjust tactically to teams being bigger and better. There’s nothing to lose, its just a chance for us to go out and see who we are.”

In other news, the NMSU basketball team has signed a big transfer from the portal. Davion Bradford, a 7-footer, comes to Las Cruces after previously playing for Wake Forest and Kansas State.

Also, Jackson Wink MMA Academy will be hosting their fight night series five MMA event on Friday night. Locally trained and native New Mexicans will be featured on the card for an opportunity to propel their respective MMA careers.

“This is very exciting for me because I get to headline a show in my hometown,” said main event fighter Jesse Tafoya. “I think a lot of fighters dream of that.”