For UNM football fans, a loss to rival New Mexico State was humiliation enough. We're talking the Aggies, who the Lobos owned the last six seasons on the gridiron.

But on Monday, more startling news. Two days after the loss to the Aggies, word came trickling in that head coach Mike Locksley and wide receivers coach J.B. Gerald got into an altercation September 20th, the day after the Lobos loss to Air Force. Gerald filed a police report about the incident and has left the program. Gerald has not been heard from since. UNM Vice President of Athletics Paul Krebs gave Locksley a verbal and written reprimand for his actions.

It's another black eye for a football program that has seen more than its fair share of dark clouds the last year and a half. In the summer of 2008, UNM was placed on three years probation by the NCAA, which also reduced the number of scholarships the football program can offer student athletes. At the end of last season in which the Lobos finished 4-8, long-time head coach Rocky Long resigned. A few months after taking the UNM job, new coach Mike Locksley became the target of a sexual harassment and age discrimination complaint by one of his office staff.

And now, the altercation that the entire free world seems to know about. National media outlets have devoured the story like sharks around chum. Late Monday and well into Tuesday there was a lot of chit-chat on local radio, internet message boards and across the country on radio and TV. Not the kind of big-time press UNM is looking for.

At his weekly news conference Tuesday, Locksley was hit hard with questions about this latest incident, one that has shaken Lobo fandom to its core. In Locksley, I saw a man who seemed to be contrite for his actions and looking to move on. But the UNM human resources department is looking into this incident, and a simple verbal and written reprimand may not be good enough.

This story is far from over, though some Lobo fans wish it were. In many lines of work, if you and I work together, we get into a fight and I hit you, I will probably lose my job and depending on what you did, you might lose yours too. But athletics is a different world and a more-detached-from-athletics human resource investigation into the facts of the incident may not be so kind as to say "stuff happens." I don't want to even speculate as to what will happen from here; it's not fair to all involved. But we and all Lobo fans will be watching.