LAS CRUCES - New Mexico State football coach Doug Martin had something on the recruiting trail that no other Aggies football coach has ever had.

For the first time, Martin was able to tell potential players that the university would be able to offer something in the way of a cost of attendance stipend in 2019.

"It certainly helps in recruiting now that we are able to go out and tell kids that our university is committed enough to football that we are going to do some form of cost of attendance," Martin said. "When you can tell them that, it shows there is a commitment. We would get beat up in recruiting against most other schools who are able to do it."

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New Mexico State will pay a stipend on top of an athlete's scholarship for the football program next year, as well as the corresponding 85 female scholarship athletes.

The school has not determined which female sports would also receive the stipend. NM State currently sponsors six men's sports and 10 women's sports.

"The details have not been worked out, but the commitment to do it at some level, has been," NM State athletics director Mario Moccia said.

Moccia said it was important for football recruiting as an independent program to be able to offer something, although the total per athlete per year will be in the $500 range while the current "gap" at New Mexico State University between the full cost of attendance at New Mexico State and the value of a NCAA scholarship, which consists of tuition, room and board and books is $4,922, per NM State.

"We haven't done it yet and I think everybody else has done it," Moccia said. "I think that Doug Martin needs some tool in his toolbox when he is recruiting. I think it's critically important if everyone else is doing cost of attendance and you are not, it puts you significantly behind the eight ball."

NM State will initially fund cost of attendance from athletic department reserves, Moccia said.

"In the past, any surplus that we had was put toward the deficit to the university," Moccia said. "They have allowed us to form a kind of reserve account."

For the past three years, NM State athletics has established a reserve account as Moccia's department has been able to finish in the black in recent years. For the current school year, for example, NM State has a $190,000 ticket revenue surplus and is roughly $100,000 ahead of its Aggie Athletic Club revenue projection over last year.

The NM State football team is slated to earn $3.8 million in revenue for guarantee games against Washington State ($600,000), Alabama ($1.7 million) and Mississippi ($1.5 million) next year.

While Martin suggested the revenue from one of those games be used to enhance either facilities or fund cost of attendance, it's also revenue the university has already budgeted for the 2019-20 athletics budget.

Cost of attendance for next year and beyond, would be new money that will be included in the FY 2020 budget.

"Right now football is earning an enormous amount of money and not seeing the direct benefit," Moccia said. "One game is going to the annual debt payment. The other one goes to fund the department. Unfortunately when we are making up the budgets, we aren't giving the sports enough to operate at a basic level so they are forced to fund raise."

While NM State will not be close to funding the full cost of attendance, for the first time since the stipend was approved in 2015, some Aggies will at least receive something.

Sports Editor Jason Groves can be reached at 575-541-5459. Follow him on Twitter @jpgroves.



