His days on oil rigs are done. Spence Nowinsky strikes it rich with New Mexico football
Before Spence Nowinsky built college football ’s stingiest defense, he was running through airports, inspecting storage tanks and checking gas dispensers for leaks. Football had spit him out. After a coaching change at Idaho left Nowinsky without a job, the former Minnesota State defensive lineman took work with a compliance company servicing the oil industry. The money was good. The football prospects weren’t. Then came a chance to get back in. “I think I took a $150,000 haircut to go coach football again.” CFB Unfiltered: What the CFP rankings got wrong about Indiana, Miami More than two decades later, that decision looks like one hell of an investment. Nowinsky is the architect of a New Mexico defense allowing a meager 10.89 points per game, the backbone of one of college football’s most improbable transformations under Jason Eck. The Lobos have won 17 of Eck’s first 22 games, including 14 of their past 16, and cracked the US LBM Coaches and AP polls for the first time in school history. Getting from the oil industry to Albuquerque, though, requires more than an atlas. The story traces almost 1,200 miles northeast, far closer to International Falls than New Mexico, to Mankato, Minnesota.
