Cow­boys kneel to Tem­ple at 2011 New Mex­ico Bowl

The teams seemed as evenly matched as any two teams could be head­ing into a bowl game. The Wyoming Cow­boys (8−4, 5–3 MWC) faced off against the Tem­ple Owls(8–4, 5–2 MAC) on a gor­geous Albu­querque after­noon in front of over 25,000 fans. There weren’t nearly as many fans for the Owls as for the Cow­boys, but that is to be expected since they come from so far away.

Ten­sions ran high before the sixth edi­tion of the Gildan New Mex­ico Bowl got started. Both teams had been inspired the day before game­day by an encap­su­lat­ing speech by for­mer NFL-great quar­ter­back Archie Man­ning, which high­lighted being a leader both on and off the field. The fans anx­iously looked for­ward to a seri­ous bat­tle on a gor­geous after­noon to start off the Bowl sea­son on ESPN.

Pass from Temple’s Coyer

The Pokes won the coin-toss and deferred to receive the ball to start the sec­ond half.Templegot the ball to start the game and made their way down the field with rel­a­tive ease. The Owls scored on a one-yard rush by Bernard Pierce for the game’s first touch­down. The drive went 90 yards in 13 plays.Wyomingthen received the ball and moved the ball down the field. They were held out of the red­zone, but had an attempted field goal, which missed wide-right. The score stayed at 7–0 and the Owls got the ball in good field posi­tion. The quar­ter ended with a score of 7–0 in the first quarter.

Tem­ple­marched down the field in nine plays for another one-yard touch­down rush for Pierce. The score forTempleput

Wyoming QB Brett Smith avoids a sack

them up 14–0 over the Cowboys.Wyomingcame out pass­ing and were quickly inter­cepted by aTem­plede­fen­sive back. The Owls moved quickly and got another rush­ing touch­down, this time from Matt Brown. The score put the Owls way up on the Pokes, 21–0.Wyomingdid all that they could to put some kind of drive together and were rewarded after two fourth-down con­ver­sions. The Pokes put a receiv­ing touch­down on the board on one of their fourth-down con­ver­sions. The touch­down was caught by Josh Doct­son for a 21-yard touch­down which finally got the Cow­boys onto the board, down 21–7. On the first play of the Owls ensu­ing drive, they tossed up a ball that was caught and run in for a touch­down by Rod Streater. The Cowboy’s defen­sive back slipped on the play and had no help over-the-top, which made the Owls touch­down rel­a­tively easy. To end the half the score was knot­ted at 28–7 in favor of theTempleOwls.

TheTem­ple­Owl­swere led by Pierce, Chris Coyer, and Tahir White­head. Pierce ran for 53 yards on a dozen car­ries with two touch­downs. Coyer went 5-for-7 with 128 yards pass­ing and a touch­down. He also had 38 yards rush­ing on five attempts. White­head led the defense with seven tack­les in the half.

Wyoming­was led at the half by quar­ter­back Brett Smith, Doct­son, and Brian Hen­dricks. Smith went 9-for-14 with a touch­down and a pair of inter­cep­tions. Smith also ran for 55 yards on 10 attempts. Doct­son had the oneWyoming­touch­down on one catch for 21 yards. Hen­dricks led the defense with six tack­les, none for losses.

Wyomin­gre­ceived the ball to start the sec­ond half and was putting together a qual­ity drive. Then they had back-to-back penal­ties to make for a 3^rd and extremely long, which forced them to punt the ball away. The Owls got the ball and wound down the clock on their drive. The Owls kicked a 34-yard field goal to end a long drive and notch the score up at 31–7 with less than two min­utes left in the third quar­ter. At the end of the third, the Owls were up on the Pokes 31–7 and had the ball to begin the 4^th quarter.

The Owls owned the fourth quar­ter of the game, just as they had for the pre­vi­ous three quar­ters. They did all that they

Doct­son makes a spec­tac­u­lar reception

could to eat up the clock while col­lect­ing another field goal along the way. The Cow­boys did their best to drive and score in hopes of sav­ing some face. The Cow­boys punched in a rush­ing touch­down by Kody Sut­ton along with a two-point con­ver­sion with a quar­ter­back draw. The final score inAl­bu­querque­was the Tem­ple Owls 37 – Wyoming Cow­boys 15.

Sta­tis­ti­cal lead­ers for the Owls were Pierce, Coyer, and White­head. Pierce fin­ished with 100 yards on 25 car­ries. Coyer went 8-for-12 with 169 yards and a touch­down. Coyer also con­tributed 71 yards rush­ing on 12 car­ries. White­head col­lected the defen­sive player of the game hon­ors with nine tack­les and a half a tackle for a loss.

The Pokes were led by Smith, Doct­son, and Hen­dricks. Smith fin­ished going 17-for-26 for 96 yards with one touch­down and three inter­cep­tions. Doct­son con­tributed three recep­tions with a touch­down. Hen­dricks had a big day with 13 tack­les on the day.

The Cow­boys put their best foot for­ward, but were thwarted early and often on a rough after­noon inNew Mex­ico. The Cow­boys and coach Dave Chris­tensen fall to 1–1 in their last two attempts at the New Mex­ico Bowl, which came in the last three years. Chris­tensen won MWC coach of the year but was unable to over­come the early momen­tum of theTem­ple­Owls. Con­grat­u­la­tions to both teams for a valiant effort and some solid competition.