Aggie fans full of school spirit ahead of opening game and $15 million in facility improvements
LAS CRUCES, New Mexico -- New Mexico State Aggies opens against the Nevada Wolf Pack Saturday at the Aggie Memorial Stadium.
Aggie students are hopeful for wins this football season and expect this weekend's game to encourage school spirit.
"I think it's gonna be fun it always is. Sometimes we have good seasons and bad seasons. I always love the camaraderie of it, and I always love the rivalries that come with it, like the battle of I-10 and battle of I-25 with UNM and UTEP," said NMSU Junior Dawn Carver.
Thousands of Aggie fans flocked to buy their tickets for NMSU's first game as a part of the stuff the stadium promotion.
"We sold over 14,500 tickets through that promotion so it was widely successful," said Mario Moccia NMSU Athletic Director.
The stadium has an official seating capacity of 29,003 the last sellout was in 2005 against UTEP.
"At the end of business yesterday Thursday there was only 3800 tickets left so there's gonna be a huge crowd. There'll be a lot of students we encourage people to come early," said Moccia.
This is the first game of the Jerry Kill era.
NMSU is starting off a memorable football season with not only a new coach but soon an updated stadium facility. The existing Aggie Memorial stadium hasn't seen a significant improvement in 44 years.
"Our football locker room is not up to par when you relate it to our competition who were recruiting against, so this will now even out the playing field," said Moccia.
This week the NMSU board of regents approved an issuance of revenue bonds worth $28.5 million dollars. Of that, $15 million will be used to finance the facility improvements.
"You've got a new locker room complex coming in. You've got a new conference that we can recruit to and that means that we can play for Conference Championship, and we'll have bowl games that are at our disposal," said Moccia.
