Jason Eck is widely viewed as one of the brightest rising stars in college football coaching, with a 15-5 record in his second season at a New Mexico program where that kind of success is far from the expectation historically.
For all those accomplishments, though, he's not so different from the rest of us.
While at a news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 27, the Lobos head coach was asked about subbing an injured player out of New Mexico's 21-16 Week 8 victory against North Dakota State. In explaining his decision-making, Eck turned to a familiar subject for many football fans, at least those of a certain age: the Madden video game franchise.
"If a guy gets injured on Madden, you've got to make a substitution," Eck said. "It comes up on the screen,
like your starter is usually a 90 (overall grade) and your backup's an 80, but because of the injury, the 90 guy is down to 78, so the backup's a little better than the guy with an injury. So you go with that."
“All the kids will know exactly what I’m talking about” - @Coach_Eck pic.twitter.com/cny0bFUtXp
— New Mexico Football (@UNMLoboFB) October 27, 2026
Eck then asked the reporter if he has ever played Madden before, to which he said he doesn't have a video game console.
It mattered little to Eck, who knew his reference would have an audience.
“All the kids will know exactly what I’m talking about," he said.
It was the latest instance in which Eck has been something of a social media darling.
While guiding the Lobos to a 6-1 mark to open the season, making a program that hadn't played in a bowl from 2017-24 bowl eligible for a second-consecutive season, Eck has earned attention for several notable sideline interactions. Those included ripping away a WWE-style turnover belt from a player celebrating while New Mexico was losing in the fourth quarter to a one-win Hawaii team and getting in the face of a defensive end who was nearly called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the fourth quarter of the win against North Dakota State.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jason Eck taps into Madden knowledge to explain substitution decision
