The kickoff to spring football started off this
year with
the annual Night of Champions in the Tow Diehm complex. For those of
you not
familiar with NOC, it is all about lugging massive amounts of weight
and
tonight was no different as combined the players competing in the NOC
lifted
12,142 pounds in the bench press, squats, and power clean.
Totals of tonight's NOC
The first thing everyone loves to talk about when it comes
to the NOC is the records that are broken and tonight was no different
as a
team the University of New Mexico is proud to announce that they have
snapped a
team record with 44 players power cleaning over 300 pounds. What is
even more
impressive is that UNM can now boast 8 players power cleaning over 350
and one
player power cleaning over 400.
Before we break that down let’s talk about records snapped
prior to the NOC
CB
Glover Quin set a record with a 40.5 inch vertical leap
QB Victor James set the incline record with a 345 lb incline
press.
CB Brandon Johnson squatted 575 lbs
**S Danny Martin Power Clean 357
**P Adam Miller Power Clean 323
**Matt Quillen Power Clean 357
Matt Quillen
**Denotes
record reset at NOC
Tonight’s highlights was the Power Clean portion
of the
night as records fell by the wayside What makes the power clean so
important
is, “Of all the lifts the power clean is the best one for football
players as
it incorporates many football moves,” said Coach Long. So Coach Long
and
Paulsen have to be excited with what happened this evening.
Punter
Adam Miller earned a spot on the big board knocking off
his coach Danny Gonzales as Miller power cleaned 338 lbs. FB Matt
Quillen once
again impressed as he shattered his own record by pushing up 384 lbs.
Yes Mr.
Quillen is a beast as he just missed on 396!
Click here to listen to
"The Killer"
One of the other highlights of the night was when safeties
Clint “Killer” McPeek and Danny Martin ended up going head to head for
the
safety power clean record. McPeek stepped up and hoisted 362 smashing
the
record set by Martin earlier this spring. Not to be outdone Martin came
back
and tied the record as he cleaned 362 and the race was on. After both
players
missed on their next lift, “The Killer” went for another shot and
earned the
safeties record with a 374 lb lift… After a minor celebration there was
McPeek
encouraging Martin to match the lift. After Martin missed, and looked
to be
finished for the evening McPeek chased him down to congratulate him and
encourage him to give it one more try. Martin attempted again and just
missed
getting the bar up. I spoke with McPeek right after NOC and the guy
said it
best, “I would have loved to share that spot with Danny.” Talk about
teammates!
Talk about camaraderie!
The other highlight of the night was DL Jeremiah
Lovato
being the first athlete at New Mexico to power clean 400lbs as Lovato
set the
new record at 401. What was amazing says Coach Paulsen, “is that Lovato
missed
his first lift which was a warm up. He didn’t look right and I wasn’t
sure he
could attempt it, but he kept his concentration and set a great record.”
Click here to listen to
Herbert Felder
Chris Hernandez
Like I said a great
night for one and all. Here is some
audio and video of tonight’s NOC as TheRedMenace.com gives you 30
minutes of
exclusive video of the 2008 Night of Champions.
Click
here to watch 2008 Bench Press
Click
here to watch 2008 Squats
Click
here to watch 2008 Press and Clean