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The sacrifices to which Moccia refers include bumping the game’s start time from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and selling thousands of tickets at a bargain-basement price of $3 apiece.

The former may encourage some fans to simply stay home and watch the game on television, but the latter promotion figures to fill a lot of seats. Moccia said the discount tickets are for east-side stands at Aggie Memorial Stadium – which will be located directly across from television cameras above the west-side stands.

Moccia concedes that selling cheap tickets to “inflate” attendance is not ideal. Tickets in Aggie Memorial Stadium’s east stands normally sell for $15 apiece.

But in order to showcase NMSU’s football program, Moccia contacted out-of-state alumni and offered to sell them tickets at $3 apiece provided they purchased blocks of at least 100 tickets. More than 5,600 east-side tickets had been sold by Friday morning, and Moccia expected the 492 still available to sell by day’s end.

“It’s obviously not ideal to have promotions like this,” Moccia said. “You’d like to maintain price integrity, especially for football and men’s basketball. But facing a quality Mountain West team on national TV is a unique opportunity, especially when we’re auditioning for a conference affiliation.”

NMSU football coach Doug Martin agreed.

“When you’re independent, you’re basically making a case for yourself every

week,” Martin said. “A game like this against a good Mountain West team is big for us, especially with it being televised. It gets our name out there kind of like the (2017 Arizona Bowl) did. It’s so good for recruiting.”

New Mexico State will not receive financial compensation from ESPN for the game’s television rights but four institutional advertisements for the school are scheduled to air during the broadcast.

As for the late start time, Moccia said NMSU officials considered starting later than normal even before the television opportunity presented itself.

“We talked about kicking off at 7 (p.m.) instead of 6 just because the temperature would be a little cooler,” Moccia said. “We decided to stick with 6 until ESPN2 came on board. I know 8 o’clock is a little late and some children could be affected, but it’s a weekend game. Everyone should be out of there by 11:30.”

CAMP NOTES: Martin declined to name a winner in NMSU’s quarterback battle Friday, but he expects to name a starter early next week. Senior Nick Jeanty, junior Matt Romero and freshman Josh Adkins have been competing for the spot during camp.

“I’m very comfortable with those guys and what they’ve done,” Martin said. “We’re going to have really good people around the quarterback, too, no matter who it is.”

The Aggies have remained largely healthy through preseason drills. The only significant injury came to sophomore wideout Caleb Mills, who suffered a broken collarbone and could be out until October, Martin said.