ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Nothing came easy.

A Colorado State offense accustomed to fast starts was held scoreless in the first. A defense burned by the pass a week ago was slashed with big running plays Friday night at New Mexico at Dreamstyle Stadium.

Yet by the end of the night, the Rams were still unbeaten in Mountain West play, courtesy of a 27-24 victory.

Coach Mike Bobo knows his team wasn’t at its best, but it hit the desired result.

“End of the day, it’s a bottom-line business, and you either win or you lose,” Bobo said. “You try to find a way to win and you improve as a football team. Everything hasn’t been perfect, but we’re finding ways to win. We were great on third down tonight, which is situational football. We were 7 out of 15 offensively, held them 2 out of 12, the difference in the game. We didn’t turn the ball over.

“That’s what you’ve got to do on the road, you can’t turn the ball over, you have to play good situational defense and you have to convert in the red zone, which we did except for the one with the penalty and the dropped pass.”

CSU improved to 6-2 on the year, becoming bowl eligible, remaining 4-0 and atop the Mountain Division standings. New Mexico slipped to 3-4, 1-3.

For the first time this season in conference play, the Rams did not score on their first drive, as each team was foiled on fourth-down attempts on their initial drives. Before the first 15 minutes were over, it was the Lobos leading the game on a 3-yard Richard McQuarley run.

With a couple of quick scoring drives capped by Nick Stevens’ touchdown passes, one to Dalton Fackrell, the other to Bisi Johnson, the Rams had a lead they would never surrender.

Before the half ended, they built some security with a perfect display of 1-minute offense, going 75 yards in six plays, capped by a 1-yard Izzy Matthews plunge.

The drive started with 1:16 on the clock and took just 59 seconds. After having just one full drive in the first quarter, Bobo said they had to be aggressive.

“They were huddling. They were milking the clock, trying to shorten the game,” he said. “That’s one more possession we can have, and trying to get that score right before the half was huge. I was disappointed how we came out in the third quarter again; we haven’t been well coming out in the third quarter.”

That drive may have been the only easy part of the night. Colorado State made enough mistakes so that the Lobos never went away, not with Tyrone Owens rushing for 159 yards and a touchdown and four different UNM ball carriers with rushes of 20 yards or longer in the game.

The Rams couldn’t put them away as the timing between Stevens and Gallup was off. The senior wideout was targeted 16 times, but only had six catches for 58 yards, or more than 200 shy of what he had a week ago. Stevens finished 17 of 33 for 233 yards as the Rams were held to 411 yards of total offense, more than 100 less than their average heading into the night.

“I haven’t seen all the stats and stuff, but I definitely missed him a bunch. Definitely not my best game,” Stevens said. “We had a couple of chances to put it away at the end, and I missed Mike on that short route to convert the first down. There will be some positives. We didn’t turn the ball over, and that’s a big thing.”

What was important to the Rams was the countered their mistakes, at least enough of them.

Izzy Matthews surpassed the 100-yard mark for the first time this season, going for 116 yards and a touchdown. When the Rams failed to find the end zone in the fourth quarter, Wyatt Bryan delivered with field goals of 40 and 52 yards, giving the Rams a two-score cushion.

The second was set up by the defense, with Patrick Elsenbast forcing a fumble recovered by Jakob Buys, the second time in as many weeks the unit came up with a key takeaway.

It was important, because New Mexico scored with 24 seconds remaining, then recovered an onside kick. Evan Colorito ended the affair with a sack on the final play, just a few minutes after his birthday has timed out.

He called it the cherry on top of his day, but he wasn’t the only one celebrating.

“Last year at this point, we lose those close games and this year we’re winning them,” he said. “It’s nice to know we can still struggle and find a win. From that we know there’s a lot to be done and we can get a lot better from here on out.”

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

Colorado St.02106—27New Mexico7377—24

First quarter

NM — McQuarley 3 run (Sanders kick), :35

Second quarter

CSU — Fackrell 7 pass from Stevens (Bryan kick), 7:48

CSU — O.Johnson 14 pass from Stevens (Bryan kick), 2:19

NM — FG Sanders 51, 1:16

CSU — Matthews 1 run (Bryan kick), :17

Third quarter

NM — Owens 25 run (Sanders kick), 8:00

Fourth quarter

CSU — FG Bryan 40, 14:49

CSU — FG Bryan 52, 5:05

NM — Molina 12 pass from Tuioti (Sanders kick), :24

A — 17,358.

CSU NM

First downs 23 21

Rushes-yards 35-180 48-318

Passing 231 132

Comp-Att-Int 17-33-0 7-19-0

Return Yards -21 50

Punts-Avg.5-44.2 3-64.66

Fumbles-Lost 0-0 3-1

Penalties-Yards 8-88 12-105