The numbers favored the Lobos in the places that decide drives: 9 conversions on 18 third downs, 208 rushing yards and five sacks. In their preseason opener Saturday, those advantages added up to a 30-6 road win over the Steamers, with El Paso building a 20-0 lead before the home side managed a score.

Teddy Cooper opened the scoring with a 35-yard field goal, then James King’s 2-yard touchdown run put the Lobos ahead 9-0 late in the first quarter. Cooper’s extra point made it 10-0. On the next Steamers possession, Kenneth Houston fumbled and Christian Norton recovered for El Paso, giving the visitors another chance to extend the lead.

They did so quickly in the second quarter. Xavier Gayle scored on a 5-yard run to make it 17-0, and Cooper added a 51-yard field goal for a 20-point cushion. The Steamers finally got on the board with a 47-yard John Butler field goal, but their offense had little room for error: it converted just 4 of 15 third downs and finished with 134 passing yards and 50 rushing yards.

The Lobos’ balance showed up in both the team totals and the individual lines. Quarterback Josef Smith threw for 208 yards and a touchdown, while the team ran for 208 yards. Wesley Patterson supplied a distinctive two-way threat, recording 106 rushing yards and 57 receiving yards. His 35-yard touchdown catch from Smith late in the third quarter followed a Merlin Olsen sack and fumble recovery, turning the defensive stop into a 27-3 lead.

El Paso’s defense finished with five sacks and forced three fumbles, recovering two. Olsen recorded a sack and forced a fumble; Hobert Rodriquez also had a sack and forced a fumble. The pressure continued into the fourth quarter, when Hobert Rodriquez and Charlie Leak sacked Charles Richard on consecutive plays after a Steamers fumble.

Cooper’s third field goal, a 33-yarder, pushed the lead to 30-3. Patterson later fumbled, and the Steamers turned that possession into Butler’s second field goal, this one from 26 yards. It trimmed the margin to 30-6, but did not change the shape of a game in which El Paso controlled third downs, ran effectively and repeatedly disrupted the quarterback.

For Patrick Panton’s Lobos, the opener offered a crisp statistical template: steady scoring, a productive ground game and a defense that created short fields. The preseason result is one game, but the efficiency was hard to miss.