Pre­dic­tions — Pokes vs. Thunderbirds

The Wyoming Cow­boys were 7–6 (4−4 MWC) last sea­son with an amaz­ing vic­tory against the Fresno State Bull­dogs in double-overtime of the New Mex­ico Bowl. This sea­son, the Cow­boys hope to do at least that well again and become eli­gi­ble for another bowl game. Head Coach Dave Chris­tensen is ask­ing a lot from his young play­ers, but he thinks that his Cow­boys can ‘Bring the Wood’, come game day.

The Cow­boys kick off their sea­son at home on Sep­tem­ber 4^th against the South­ern Utah Uni­ver­sity Thun­der­birds. The Thun­der­birds went 5–6 (2−2 Great West Con­fer­ence) in 2009. Last sea­son SUU lost to their only MWC oppo­nent, San Diego State, 19–35. At quar­ter­back the Thun­der­birds are start­ing a sopho­more trans­fer, Brad Sorensen. The Thun­der­birds sta­tis­ti­cal lead­ers in rush­ing and receiv­ing both returned to the team: junior Austin Mine­fee with 99 car­ries, 544 yards on the ground, and one rushing/four receiv­ing touch­downs as well as senior Tyson Poots with 85 recep­tions for 1,081 yards, and 15 touchdowns.

Wyoming returns all three of their offen­sive sta­tis­ti­cal lead­ers as well. Lead­ing in pass­ing was, true fresh­man, Austyn Carta-Samuels with 1,953 yards and 10 touch­downs. Lead­ing in rush­ing was fresh­man Alvester Alexan­der with 136 car­ries for 640 yards and seven touch­downs. The Pokes lead­ing receiver was junior David Leonard with 77 recep­tions for 705 yards and three touchdowns.

The sea­son opener will be one of only a few games that the Pokes have ever played under their own lights. Kick­off is sched­uled for 7pm (MTN) and it should be an elec­tric atmos­phere at War Memo­r­ial Stadium.

PREDICTION: Wyoming Cow­boys 23 – South­ern Utah Thun­der­birds 19

Fol­low­ing the game there will be fire­works on dis­play in cel­e­bra­tion of the com­ple­tion of Wyoming’s Wild­cat­ter Sta­dium Club & Suites, which are new box seats on the east stands.