New Mexico State's football schedule

The New Mexico State football program caught a break for the 2009 schedule when it was announced that it would start the season with three straight home football games.

The Aggies will start with Western Athletic Conference foe Idaho at home, followed by non-conference games with Prairie View A&M and Texas-El Paso.

NMSU's game with Idaho is a winnable game. The Vandals are a program trying to improve just like NMSU. What will also help NMSU is that it has a new philosophy on both sides of the ball, so Idaho will have less to go off of in terms of tape.

In weeks 2 and 3, the Aggies certainly have great opportunities to win. The Aggies should be Prairie View and the Aggies have handled UTEP two straight years and should be able to compete with them at home.

Then the schedule gets tougher with road games at New Mexico and San Diego State, which will big tests for Walker's bunch.

It's not going to be easy for Walker and his bunch and he knows that. Most people are going to predict the Aggies to finish in the bottom third of the WAC once again and there is no reason to predict otherwise.

Through two days of spring practice, the once certainty is that Walker, his staff and the team is going to work to try and improve. There is no sense is making any type of prediction right now on the NMSU record for 2009.

There are still a lot of things for the team to work through and try to understand. And a rebuilding job takes time. Walker and his staff seem to have a good floor plan for what they want to do and that's the first step.

- Felix