Martin's first year at NSMU was ... familiar. NMSU went 2-10; it was the third time in four years that the Aggies won two or fewer games in a season and seventh in 11 that they won three or fewer. But that's fine. Results aren't going to matter for a while. With realignment almost relegating the Aggies to FCS -- they were left without a conference in 2013 after the WAC's disintegration and spent the year as an independent before catching a life raft from the Sun Belt -- the goal of the program was mostly about survival, and for now they have accomplished that goal.
Martin is playing a long game, which is both admirable and scary. When you're building a program almost from scratch (and to be sure, Martin didn't inherit much from Walker), you might be tempted to load up on transfers, JUCO and otherwise. But Martin isn't going that route. He claims to want to build from high school talent, and he backed that up by signing just two JUCOs in a 25-man recruiting class earlier this February. The upside is that he can develop and sculpt talent over the long-term; the downside is that his team is going to continue to stink for a while.
He enters Year 2 tasked with replacing most of last year's play-makers, relatively speaking, and trying to figure out what the hell to do about a defense that was thin and horrendous.