ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The players thought the request to be quite odd, in fact.

As Colorado State kicker Wyatt Bryan lined up for a 23-yard field goal on the final play of the first half Saturday, coach Mike Bobo had this message for his team.

“We’re lining up for that field goal, and I was going down the sidelines, to the offense to the defense,” Bobo started. “I said I don’t care if he makes it or not. It’s all about body language. As soon as he kicks it, we’re just sprinting off this field like he made it.”

The response was pretty unanimous.

Huh?

“He said, no matter what happens, go in, it’s about body language, stay up,” CSU quarterback Nick Stevens said. “We were like, this is a little bit weird.”

But Bobo had a point. As confused as linebacker Kiel Robinson was at the moment, he understood after it all took place, after the Rams left University Stadium with a 28-21 victory, the team’s third in a row to move to 6-5 on the year (4-3 in Mountain West play), becoming bowl eligible for a third straight year.

“I understood afterwards. I’m glad we ran off the field to show that we were confident, because it kind of pissed their team off,” Robinson said. “I’m just glad we came out with the W.”

Bobo knew what he was talking about. A month ago, he wasn’t exactly dealing with a confident team. In fact, the Rams were a bit wounded after a 41-17 loss to San Diego State. The drive to have the field-goal chance was impressive, so act the part.

Have some swagger. Show the other sideline this night it yours.

So he followed his own advice and didn’t look.

“I saw our guys giving (high-)fives, but I didn’t look to see if it went in,” Bobo said. “I just ran, because I didn’t care. I wanted the guys to say it didn’t matter what had happened. We had 30 minutes to go, whether we scored a touchdown or not, we had 30 more minutes to play.”

Colorado State had done well to even have a chance.

New Mexico punted once on Saturday, and it was nearly perfect. With just 4:04 remaining in the first half, the Lobos’ Zack Rodgers hit a 46-yarder, then Donnie Dixon pinned at the 3 yard line.

Undeterred, Bobo didn’t play it safe, calling for Stevens to throw on first down. And not a quick pass, either, but a ball fake that required the sophomore to turn his back on the defense. When he turned around, he saw a rush, scrambled and picked up 5 yards.

And the Rams were off.

Stevens hit Rashard Higgins three times on the drive, also connecting with Joe Hansley for a good chunk. It almost fell apart at the end when Stevens was hit and fumbled, but recovered, but New Mexico was also offside. With 1 second on the clock, Bryan hit the field goal after having one blocked earlier, handing the Rams the lead.

He would add to it with a 22-yarder out of the gates in the second half, but even when the Lobos took the lead in the third, Bobo was still dealing with a confident team.

That feeling is building, too. The seniors are confident they are going bowling again. The Mountain West has seven guaranteed spots and seven qualified teams after Utah State rallied to be Nevada. However, one of those spots (most likely the Hawaii bowl) is going to BYU.

The NCAA needs 80 teams to fill 40 games, so chances are strong the Rams are going somewhere. As of Sunday morning, there are 71 bowl-eligible teams, 14 more which still have a shot. However, of those teams, only four will be favored to get the win they need. Virginia Tech will be a toss-up facing Virginia in Frank Beemer’s final game and 10 others will not be favored to win. It is quite possible the NCAA will be looking at five-win teams after finding bowls for all the qualified teams.

After constantly telling his team it had to finish out games — the Rams have held leads in 10 of 11 — Bobo said the same holds true for the season at hand.

“We talked about it. It was a big deal last week, last home game, finishing out strong,” Bobo said. “After that, that Monday we talked about we’re not done. We’ve got to continue to fight, we’ve got to continue to finish, and today we talked about where we came from — 2-4 and then 3-5 — you’ve got a chance to get bowl eligible. You’ve got a chance to win three in a row. You’ve got a chance to actually win five out of your last six as a football team. In order to do that, we’ve got to finish. We’ve got to finish everything we do every single day.”

And one play — good or bad — wasn’t going to sway his thinking.

“I didn’t want it to be a downer if we didn’t make it,” Bobo said. “Fortunately he made it, but I didn’t even look. I just took off sprinting because we weren’t losing the game.”

Not that his players could say the same thing.

Stevens said without a doubt he watched, then sprinted across the field. Robinson, too.

“Oh, I saw it go in. I saw the field goal go in,” he said. “Basically everybody looked.”

But now, Bobo has a team looking forward.

Mike Brohard: 970-635-3633, mbrohard@reporter-herald.com and twitter.com/mbrohard