If it wasn’t clear to those following the new hires around college football by now, Jason Eck’s hire at New Mexico is now cemented as the frontrunner for the most fun hire of the off season cycle.

Eck, a career offensive line coach with offensive coordinator stops at Minnesota State and South Dakota State before landing the head coaching job at Idaho in 2022, went 26-12 leading the Vandals. At his first head coaching stop, Eck led the Vandals to top top 25 FCS finishes all three seasons, finishing among the top eight in his final two seasons after winning 9 and then 10 games with losses in the FCS Quarterfinal rounds, respectively.

His hire at New Mexico has helped to immediately inject some enthusiasm and optimism into the Lobos program, following the departure of Bronco Mendenhall for Utah State after just one season.

The latest example of Eck’s unique stamp on the Lobos program came yesterday.

Set to bring his squad up to The Mitten State to face off against Michigan in Ann Arbor, released their official two-deep, but it came with a bit of a twist.

Since Michigan notoriously doesn’t release their two-deep chart, leaving many questions for the New Mexico staff to navigate outside of the announcement of five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood winning the starting QB job, New Mexico didn’t exactly release theirs.

Labeled “2025 Imaginary Two-Deep,” UNM associate AD-Communications Frank Mercogliano loaded the creative list with fictional characters from his favorite movies.

The release from New Mexico notes that Frank “really likes Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, and Leonardo DiCaprio movies. Obviously.”

Dig into the list and you’ll notice all the offensive players are from Tom Hanks movies. Toy Story’s Sheriff Woody backs up a wide receiver spot with Josh Baskin from Big listed at a receiver spot as well, and of course Forrest Gump at running back (an excellent choice I may add).

Defense is full of Tom Cruise players with Pete “Maverick” Mitchell from Top Gun holding down a linebacker spot with Jerry McGuire entrenched in a safety spot.

Special teams was reserved for Leo with Jack Dawson from Titanic handling kickoff duties and Arnold Grape from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape being entrusted with holding for PAT and field goals.

Of course, nothing fun like this would be complete without the internet weighing in on some missed opportunities, and boy were there some.

Here’s a few of my favorites.

The simple act of not taking themselves too seriously has attracted the attention of a lot of folks that are now considering themselves fans of Eck and the Lobos program.

Michigan and New Mexico will kick off Saturday at 7:30pm in Ann Arbor with the game being aired on Peacock.