On November 5, 2021, New Mexico State announced it would be joining Conference USA in all sports including football starting in 2023.

From 1948 to 1957, NMSU compiled a dismal 21–74 record under four head coaches (Vaughn Corley, Joseph Coleman, James Patton and Anthony Cavallo) that were either fired or forced to resign in succession.

[13] In his second season at New Mexico State, Woodson's team defeated North Texas in the 1959 Sun Bowl.

[17] Johnson went on to play in the National Football League for 15 years with the St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Oilers and Denver Broncos.

[12] However at the end of that season, university administration, with whom Woodson had a contentious relationship throughout his career, invoked a clause requiring state employees to retire at age 65.

[12] Thus Woodson, who would turn 65 that offseason, was essentially forced out despite a 7–2–1 1967 campaign that ended with a 54–7 shellacking of archrival New Mexico.

[18] Despite some impressive single game wins and individual player stats, the Aggies have struggled as a team in the days since Warren Woodson.

[5] Jim Bradley, Gil Krueger and Fred Zechman also led the Aggies football program during these years and they failed to produce any winning seasons as they were fired as a result.

[21] NMSU, hoping for a positive change in results, hired Jim Hess away from Stephen F. Austin in December 1989.

[23] The Aggies were also featured in the August 31, 1992, issue of Sports Illustrated[24] in a piece that chronicles a tradition of losing games.

22 ranked Arizona State by a shocking 35–7 score, bringing much-needed attention to the football program.

[30] Running back Denvis Manns became the third college football player to rush for 1,000 yards each of his four seasons.

[39] The 15-year NFL veteran quarterback Charley Johnson, who an alumnus and was then a chemical engineering professor at New Mexico State, was appointed as interim head coach during the search for a replacement.

[40] UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker was named NMSU's head coach on December 31, 2008,[41] signifying a new direction for the pass offense-oriented squad.

[45] Martin had previously been offensive coordinator at NMSU during the 2011 season helping obtain the school's first victory over a Big Ten team (Minnesota) before being hired away by Boston College.

[49][50] Kill, a successful former head coach who stepped away due to health issues,[51] signed a five-year contract that pays $550,000 per year.

[53] On November 18, 2023, during Coach Kill's second season, the Aggies delivered a 31-10 beatdown to the Auburn University Tigers of the SEC, in an historic upset victory.

On September 12, 2012, New Mexico State announced that it would stay in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and become an independent for 2013, while exploring potential conference affiliations for future seasons.

However, on March 1, 2016, the Sun Belt Conference announced via teleconference that New Mexico State's football-only associate membership would not be renewed following the 2017 FBS season because it, along with fellow football-only member Idaho, were too far from the Sun Belt's geographic "footprint" in the Southeastern United States.

On November 5, 2021, New Mexico State announced it would be joining Conference USA in all sports including football starting in 2023.

The Aggies, coming off a Quick Lane Bowl winning season, were hungry to join a conference, and after being independent for years, they finally had a chance.

The series, known as the Rio Grande Rivalry, dates back to January 1, 1894 – eighteen years before the state of New Mexico achieved statehood – when the schools met in a football contest in Albuquerque.

It is a replica of an old prospector's shovel found in an abandoned mine in the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces and has been traded between the schools since 1955.

Following World War II the series resumed on an annual basis from 1946 until 2001, when UTEP's administration made the controversial decision to cancel their scheduled trip to Las Cruces in favor of scheduling an additional home contest against a Division I-AA opponent.

The schools agreed to meet again in 2002 (a 49–14 NMSU win, their biggest blowout of the Miners since 1922), but did not play again until 2004 in El Paso when the Miners exacted revenge for their blowout loss two years prior with a 45–0 pasting of the Aggies, the most lopsided result in the series in 55 years.