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.

Bronze Boot bat­tle leads to NM Bowl birth

The Bronze Boot resided on the Wyoming side of the field and never left their sideline

On a snow cov­ered land­scape in Fort Collins, the Wyoming Cow­boys 7–4 (4−2 MWC) took on the Col­orado State Rams 3–8 (1−5 MWC) in the 103^rd Bor­der War. The­Bat­tle for the Bronze Boot was rowdy and at times there were tem­pers flar­ing all over the field. Both teams had mul­ti­ple per­sonal fouls from both sides of the ball through­out the game. Not a big sur­prise for the biggest rivalry in the Moun­tain West Conference.

Quar­ter­back Brett Smith rushes out of the pocket for Wyoming

The game began with the Cow­boys win­ning the coin-toss and choos­ing to defer to get the ball to start the sec­ond half. The Rams got the ball and moved it down the field with rel­a­tive ease, until they got inside theWyoming10-yard line. The Rams were forced to kick a 21-yard field goal and put the first points of the game on the scoreboard.Wyomingwasn’t dis­cour­aged and worked their way down the field metic­u­lously for their first score of the day by way of a rush­ing touch­down by Alvester Alexan­der, putting the score atWyoming7 – CSU 3. There were mul­ti­ple pos­ses­sions for both teams that led to a cou­ple of punts in a bat­tle for field posi­tion. To end the first quar­ter the Cow­boys were up on the Rams, 7–3.

In the sec­ond quar­ter both teams con­tin­ued dri­ving and pun­ish­ing the oppos­ing team’s defense. The Rams started the scor­ing in the sec­ond quar­ter as well, putting up a 44-yard field goal to tighten up the score at 7–6 in favor of Wyoming. The Pokes struck quickly to steal away any kind of momen­tum that had been build­ing up for the Rams. In less than 20 sec­onds, Smith had an 80-yard pass com­ple­tion to fresh­man wide receiver Josh Doct­son that resulted in a touch­down. That play was the final score of the half with more than ten min­utes remain­ing on the clock. Half­time score wasWyoming14 – CSU 6.

CSU quar­ter­back Grayson eludes Cow­boy defenders

CSU was led sta­tis­ti­cally by quar­ter­back Gar­ret Grayson, wide receiver Matt Yemm, and kicker Chad Van­der­molen. Grayson also pulled double-duty, lead­ing thru the air as well as on the ground. Grayson went 8-for-14 for 93 yards and a pair of inter­cep­tions. Grayson led the ground attack with 79 yards on ten rush­ing attempts. Yemm had three recep­tions for 53 yards. Van­der­molen had two field goals.

Mar­que­ston Huff, aka Quest, lines up inside the Ram redzone

Wyoming­was led by quar­ter­back Brett Smith, wide receiver Josh Doct­son, and defen­sive back Mar­que­ston Huff. Smith led the way both in the air and on the ground. Smith went 7-for-13 with 130 yards thru the air and a touch­down. Smith pulled double-duty and also had 74 yards rush­ing. Doct­son caught two passes for 94 yards receiv­ing and a touch­down. Huff stopped a seri­ous CSU drive with an inter­cep­tion in the endzone.

Rams encir­cle a fan­tas­tic punt just feet from the Wyoming goal line

The Pokes started the sec­ond half with the ball and would have felt pretty com­fort­able had they got­ten a score to start the half. Unfor­tu­nately, true-freshman quar­ter­back Smith threw his first inter­cep­tion of the game to hand the ball to the Rams already in Cow­boy ter­ri­tory. The turnover led to a CSU touch­down by Ray­mond Carter. The Rams then faked the point-after but were stopped less than a yard from the goal line for their two-point con­ver­sion. The touch­down put the score at 14–12 in favor of the Pokes, but those pesky Rams were still within strik­ing dis­tance. CSU also got the games next score with another rush­ing touch­down by Carter. This touch­down run put the score in favor of the Rams for the first time since early in the first quar­ter. The third quar­ter ended with the score in favor of the home-team CSU Rams 14–19.

Ram’s quar­ter­back Grayson calls out his cadence

The fourth quar­ter started with the Rams in scor­ing posi­tion. Luck­ily the Pokes defense held CSU to a field goal attempt. On the attempt, the kick struck the right up-right and doinked back into the end­zone. Score remained at 14–19 in favor of the Rams, but Wyoming­had stolen some wind from the sails of CSU with the missed field goal. The Pokes fire back with a sec­ond pass­ing touch­down going to Doct­son for 35 yards and the score. This put the Cow­boys back on top and they would not relin­quish their 20–19 lead. CSU had a tough drive on their next pos­ses­sion and went for the first down on fourth down. The Cow­boy defense held strong and gave the ball back to the Pokes offense. Smith quickly gave the ball back to the Rams with his sec­ond inter­cep­tion, this one inside the Ram 5-yard line. Luck­ily, the Pokes defense stood strong and got a safety. This put the score at Wyoming22 – Col­orado State 19. Wyoming­got the ball back and con­tin­ued to waste time off the clock. They were suc­cess­ful in their attempt and won the 103^rd Bor­der War with a score of 22–19.

Some of the many Wyoming fans that made their way down to Fort Collins

Sta­tis­ti­cal lead­ers for the Rams were Grayson, and Carter. Grayson fin­ished going 15-for-25 with 143 yards and three inter­cep­tions. Grayson also had 91 yards on 17 car­ries. Carter ran for 158 yards and a pair of touch­downs on 17 attempts along with 11 yards on two recep­tions. CSU had inter­cep­tions by Mychal Sis­son and Austin Gray. CSU fin­ished the sea­son at 3–9 (1−6 MWC) and are tied for sixth place in the Moun­tain West with­New Mex­i­coand UNLV.

Cow­boys sack CSU quar­ter­back for a safety

The Cow­boys were led by Smith, Doct­son, and Alvester Alexan­der. Doct­son fin­ished with three recep­tions for 129 yards and two touch­downs. Alexan­der ran for 87 yards and a touch­down on 13 carries.Wyominggot a trio of inter­cep­tions against the Rams from Huff, Tashaun Gip­son, and fresh­man Blair Burns. Smith had a game where he was hot-and-cold at times, but put up more yards for the books. Smith went 11-for-22 with 191 yards, two touch­downs, two inter­cep­tions, and a fum­ble lost. Smith also rushed for 90 yards on 16 car­ries. The Pokes fin­ish the sea­son at 8–4 (5−2 MWC) and hold sole pos­ses­sion of third place in the Moun­tain West.

Smith has already locked-down a legacy for him­self at the­Uni­ver­si­ty­ofWyomin­gand in the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence as a true-freshman quar­ter­back. In Saturday’s game Smith sur­passed MWC-great and cur­rent NFL rookie-of-the-year front-runner, Andy Dal­ton for most total yards by a fresh­man quar­ter­back. Smith has an astound­ing total of 3,140 yards as well as 18 touch­downs thru the air and 10 on the ground.

Wyoming­had become bowl-eligible with their pre­vi­ous win at home, but they were look­ing to keep their momen­tum going into the bowl sea­son. The Cow­boys (8−4, 5–2 MWC) have been invited to the 2011 Gildan New Mex­ico Bowl to face the Tem­ple Owls (8−4, 5–3 MAC) on Decem­ber 17^th in Albu­querque at noon. The Pokes will be mak­ing their sec­ond appear­ance in three years in the NM Bowl. In 2009 the Cow­boys had a specatcu­lar multiple-overtime vic­tory against the Fresno State Bulldogs. The Pokes will be kick­ing off the Bowl sea­son again on the 17^th. Wyoming will be led by Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence Coach of the Year Dave Chris­tensen and Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence Fresh­man of the Year, true-freshman quarterback, Brett Smith.

The talk of the town is sure to be Head Coach Dave Chris­tensen. In his three-year reign at the­Uni­ver­si­ty­ofWyomingthe Pokes have made it to two bowl appear­ances and have taken home the Bronze Boot for the Bor­der War in all three sea­sons. Chris­tensen will also be lead­ing his men to their sec­ond bowl appear­ance in Christensen’s three-year reign.

Head Coach Dave Chris­tensen holds up the Bronze Boot in vic­tory for a 3-peat

True-freshman QB leads Pokes to Bowl Eligibility

On a cold, snowy Sat­ur­day after­noon the Wyoming Cow­boys 6–3 (3−1 MWC) faced off against the New Mex­ico Lobos 1–9 (1−4 MWC). It was the Pokes final home game and the team’s seniors were hon­ored for their ded­i­ca­tion prior to the game. In their final game at War Memo­r­ial sta­dium the Cow­boys con­trolled their own des­tiny. With a win Wyoming would make itself bowl eli­gi­ble for the sec­ond time in three years under coach Dave Christensen.

The fans came out to sup­port the Cow­boys in hopes of help­ing them clinch a bowl birth. There weren’t a record num­ber of fans, but they made their pres­ence felt. To begin the game the Cow­boys elected to receive and started the game off on offense. The Pokes drove the dis­tance of the field and went for a touch­down on fourth down inside the five yard line. The Lobos’ defense was still fresh and they were able to thwart the Cowboy’s effort to get a turnover on downs. The Lobos got the ball on their own three yard line and did all they could to try and power the ball out of their own end­zone. The Lobos punted to Wyoming and the Pokes started their drive already in New Mex­ico ter­ri­tory. The Cow­boys took less than a minute to get their first score with a screen pass dumped to Bran­don Miller for 26 yards. At the end of the first quar­ter the score was Wyoming 7 – Lobos 0.

In the sec­ond quar­ter New Mex­ico did what Wyoming had done in the first. They worked the clock with a few method­i­cal dri­ves. In their first pos­ses­sion the Lobos got a field goal after being stopped inside the red­zone. Wyoming got the ball and began to drive, but the ball was fum­bled by Alvester Alexan­der on the 12 yard line. Teams exchanged a cou­ple of pos­ses­sions before Wyoming had a missed field goal. When New Mex­ico got the ball, they made the Pokes pay for their turnover by run­ning down the clock and tack­ing on seven points. The score put the Lobos in the lead for the first time, 10–7. With only 1:41 left on the game clock the Pokes started a stel­lar two-minute drill. The Cow­boys got their lead back with only 25 sec­onds left by way of an Alexan­der rush­ing touch­down. The half ended with a score of 14–10 in favor of the Cow­boys, but the Lobos would get the ball to start the sec­ond half.

Wyoming was sta­tis­ti­cally led in the first half by Alexan­der, Brett Smith, and Tashaun Gip­son. Alexan­der did his job on the ground with 10 rushes for 44 yards and a touch­down. Smith was doing it all with 146 pass­ing yards and a touch­down, going 13-for-18 thru the air. Smith also con­tributed 25 yards on a hand­ful of car­ries. Gip­son led the defense with six tackles.

New Mex­ico was led by Cru­soe Gong­bay, B.R. Hol­brook, and Car­men Messina. Gong­bay got yards on the ground and thru the air, accu­mu­lat­ing 31 yards rush­ing and 29 yards receiv­ing. Hol­brook went 7-for-11 with 67 pass­ing yards and a rush­ing touch­down. Messina was the defen­sive stand­out with five tack­les in the first half.

Only a few sec­onds into the first drive of the sec­ond half, the Cow­boys got the ball back cour­tesy of a Gip­son inter­cep­tion. The Pokes got the ball in good field posi­tion but were forced into a three-and-out. New Mex­ico got stopped on their drive and were forced to punt it back to Wyoming. The Pokes had a quick drive that stalled in the red­zone, lead­ing to a field goal. After a few stuffed dri­ves that ate up almost seven min­utes off the clock, the third quar­ter ends with the score Wyoming 17 – New Mex­ico 10.

Wyoming opened up the fourth quar­ter deep in Lobo ter­ri­tory. It didn’t take long for quar­ter­back Brett Smith to bob-and-weave his way into the end­zone for a rush­ing touch­down, ele­vat­ing the score to 24–10 in favor of the Pokes. Both teams exchanged punts and ate up much of the fourth quar­ter clock. With less than seven min­utes left in the game, Smith scram­bled out of the pocket to find a wide open lane all the way to the end­zone. Smith punched it into the end­zone with a 69 yard rush. That score put the Cow­boys way up, 31–10. The Lobos attempted to save some face with a late game score, but were unable to pen­e­trate the Cow­boys red­zone defense. The Lobos turned the ball over on a fum­ble by the quar­ter­back and Wyoming took a knee to end the game.

Lead­ing the way in the sec­ond half for the Pokes were Smith, Gip­son, and Mazi Ogbanna. Ogbanna chipped in with six recep­tions for 78 yards. Gip­son con­tributed 10 tack­les and an inter­cep­tion. Smith did what he almost always does. He took over the game. Smith put on a show with his long touch­down run, which turned out to be the nail-in-the-coffin. Smith had a total of 147 yards rush­ing on 12 attempts. He also went 23-for-38 for 212 yards and a touch­down thru the air.

Gip­son talked to reporters post-game and stated, “In my wildest dreams I couldn’t have pic­tured a bet­ter end­ing to my play­ing career here in War Memo­r­ial Stadium.”

Coach Chris­tensen had some kind words for his quar­ter­back. “He just amazes me every time he plays. He’s such a hum­ble young man and great com­peti­tor. I can’t wait to get him on a timer (for the 40-yard dash). He out­ran their sec­ondary,” stated Christensen.

Even New Mex­ico Interim Head Coach George Bar­low was impressed with Smith’s play. He stated, “Brett Smith is doing a great job this year for a fresh­man in their sys­tem. When they ask him to throw the ball he tries to pro­tect it as much as he can and if it’s not there he will do a good job of run­ning with it. He also does an excel­lent job run­ning when they have plays designed for him to run. He is play­ing excel­lent (for them).”

New Mex­ico was led by Gong­bay, Hol­brook, and Messina. Gong­bay fin­ished with 52 yards on 10 rush­ing attempts. Hol­brook ended with 53 rush­ing yards and a touch­down on 12 car­ries. He also went 18-for-28 for 162 yards and a touch­down thru the air. Messina had 11 tack­les with two of them being for a loss.

With their stel­lar per­for­mance on senior day, the Pokes increased their record to 7–3 (4−1 MWC). The Lobos record goes to 1–10 (1−5 MWC) and they fall to the bot­tom of the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence. The Pokes vaulted them­selves into a bowl birth in Smith’s true-freshman sea­son with a few more weeks left in the sea­son. Next week the Pokes head up to the Smurf-turf. They will take on an extremely tal­ented team in Boise State 8–1 (3−1 MWC). Boise State’s only loss came to a tough TCU team after a missed field goal to end the game. In the final game of the sea­son, the Cow­boys will head down to Fort Collins for the Bor­der War and the Bronze Boot.

Get­ting back on their feet

On a glo­ri­ous fall after­noon the Wyoming Cow­boys 3–2 (0−0 MWC) took on the UNLV Run­ning Rebels 1–4 (0−0 MWC) for their home­com­ing game. This marked the open­ing of Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence play for both teams. The Cow­boys were hop­ing to regain past momen­tum that had been crushed in the blowout fac­ing Utah State 2–3 (0−0 WAC) last week. The Rebels were hop­ing to cre­ate some momen­tum of their own as they move toward the sec­ond half of the season.

The Pokes received the ball to start the game on offense. Their offense was hop­ing to do some dam­age after last weeks’ thump­ing in Utah. The Pokes offense found lit­tle resis­tance in their first drive and in the first quar­ter. Wyoming came out of the gates with a five play drive that took them 80 yards in only 1:28. The drive was capped by 41-yard pass to Dominic Ruf­fran for the first score of the game. The point-after attempt was schtoinked off the right upright, only giv­ing the Cow­boys a 6–0 lead. UNLV’s first pos­ses­sion went poorly, result­ing in an inter­cep­tion by free safety Luke Ander­son. The Pokes quickly took the reins and rode the back of run­ning back Alvester Alexan­der for a goal-line rush for a touch­down. The score put the Cow­boys on top of the Rebels 13–0. After a few three-and-outs, the Pokes got another chance to score before the end of the first quar­ter. They put another touch­down on the board with a 15-yard pass to wide receiver Spencer Bruce. The score stood at 20–0.

The sec­ond quar­ter didn’t start much bet­ter for the Rebels, but it took a u-turn in a hurry. After UNLV was pres­sured to punt, they recov­ered the ball after a muffed punt on Wyoming’s part. The turnover gave UNLV great field posi­tion and they needed to put some points on the board if they were going to climb back into the game. Once they were close to the end­zone they picked up some points with a rush­ing touch­down by Tim Cor­nett. Wyoming did lit­tle, if any­thing, on their next drive and punted the ball back to UNLV. The Rebels moved eas­ily down the field to get right back into the game. They earned a sec­ond touch­down for Cor­nett and notched the score at 20–14. The Rebels found them­selves well within strik­ing dif­fer­ence as the half con­cluded at 20–14 in favor of the Pokes.

At half­time, the Cow­boys were on top by a nar­row mar­gin. They were led sta­tis­ti­cally by Brett Smith, Alexan­der, and Gabe Knap­ton. Smith had a solid first half going 6-for-12 for 83 yards and two touch­downs thru the air. Smith also tacked on 65 yards rush­ing on eight car­ries. Alexan­der led the ground attack with 30 yards on five car­ries along with a touch­down. Knap­ton did his part on defense and had seven tack­les to lead the team.

The Rebels were led by Dionz Brad­ford, Phillip Payne, and James Dun­lap. Brad­ford had 15 car­ries for 89 yards. Payne had a sin­gle recep­tion for 32 yards. Dun­lap led his defense with four tack­les and a sack.

The sec­ond half was far less excit­ing than the first half had ended up being. UNLV got the ball to begin the sec­ond half, but were unable to drive and were forced to punt. UW got the ball and put together a solid drive for 55 yards in 12 plays. That drive ended with a 24-yard field goal by Daniel Sul­li­van, putting the Cow­boys at 23–14. The defense held strong once again and the Rebels were forced into another three-and-out and a punt. On the ensu­ing return, Chris McNeill went 76 yards while avoid­ing many would-be tack­lers. He also got a mon­ster block against the final defender and made his touch­down return look sim­ple, putting the Cow­boys even fur­ther in front of the Rebels 30–14.

McNeill com­mented on the crunch­ing block that led to the end­zone, “I didn’t actu­ally see DeAn­dre Jones, block, but I def­i­nitely heard it… Every­body did their job on Spe­cial Forces today. Any­time we can get a full-team effort like that, it def­i­nitely does won­ders for the team.”

Head Coach Bobby Hauck of the Rebels com­mented on the punt return, “That was a big play. We came into this game, I think, lead­ing the Moun­tain West in punt­ing and not giv­ing up plays like that. There were a lot of big plays in this game.”

Wyoming had a lit­tle bit more razzle-dazzle tucked up their sleeves and put it to good use in the final quar­ter. Only three min­utes after the return for a touch­down, the Pokes put another touch­down on the board with some trick­er­a­tion. Inside the Rebel 30, the Cow­boys put the Statue of Lib­erty into use with a pass to quar­ter­back Brett Smith from McNeill. No one picked up Smith and he made an uncon­tested recep­tion and turned it into points on the board. The Cow­boys were up 36–14 and decided to fake the point-after and got their two point con­ver­sion to make it 38–14. Lit­tle life was left in the Run­ning Rebels and they gave up another field goal to put the final score at 41–14.

The sec­ond half seemed even more lop­sided than the first. Lead­ing the Cow­boys for the game were Smith, Alexan­der, and McNeill. Smith fin­ished with a respectable 96 yards on 10-of-19 thru the air with his two touch­down passes and his touch­down recep­tion. Alexan­der fin­ished with 74 yards on 14 car­ries and a touch­down. The man-of-the-hour, how­ever, was the speed­ster McNeill. McNeill had a bril­liant punt return for a score as well as throw­ing a touch­down pass to Smith. Three Cow­boys tied with 10 tack­les a-piece.

Lead­ing UNLV sta­tis­ti­cally was Cor­nett and Brad­ford. Cor­nett had the only two scores on the day but Brad­ford did much of the dirty work, get­ting 104 yards on 22 carries.

Next week the Cow­boys 4–2 (1−0 MWC) head to San Diego to take on the Aztecs 4–2 (1−1 MWC). The game will be a good barom­e­ter of Wyoming’s chances in con­fer­ence matchups for the rest of the sea­son. Hope­fully, the Pokes will only build on their cur­rent momen­tum and find them­selves bowl eli­gi­ble by season’s end.

#9 Huskers come to Town

Jonah Field at War Memo­r­ial sta­dium was a spec­tac­u­lar sight when the #9 Nebraska Corn­huskers 3–0 (0−0) came to Laramie to take on the Wyoming Cow­boys 3–0 (0−0). There were 32,617 fans in atten­dance and there were more-than-a-few Nebraska fans present. The crowd was the third largest in War Memo­r­ial history.

Wyoming was com­ing off of a nail-biting vic­tory on the road against the Bowl­ing Green Fal­cons 2–1. The Pokes blocked a point-after-touchdown with less than a minute left in reg­u­la­tion to save them­selves from being forced into over­time. The final score was 28–27, Cow­boys. The Corn­huskers were fresh off a 51–38 vic­tory over the Wash­ing­ton Huskies 2–1.

The Cow­boys received the kick­off to start the game. They had lit­tle suc­cess mov­ing the ball against such a stout defense, but the Wyoming defense was doing their jobs as well. The only touch­down in the first quar­ter of play was a 45-yard run by Nebraska run­ning­back Rex Burk­head halfway thru the quarter.

Luck­ily, the sec­ond quar­ter held much more excite­ment than the first. Nebraska found its’ tempo and met lit­tle resis­tance as they made their way down the field for a 8-yard touch­down run by quar­ter­back Tay­lor Mar­tinez. Wyoming shook off the Husker score by hav­ing a qual­ity drive that was capped by a 48-yard pass to wide-receiver Mazi Ogbonna for a touch­down. The Cow­boys had found their way onto the score­board, 14–7, with the clock wind­ing down in the first half. At half­time the score remained 14–7 in favor of Nebraska.

The sec­ond half, unfor­tu­nately, was more of what you might have expected against a Top 10 foe. The Corn­huskers con­trolled the line on both sides of the ball and the Pokes were unable to come back with much force. The third quar­ter saw two Nebraska scores: another rush­ing touch­down for Burk­head as well as a 20-yard field goal. At the end of the third quar­ter Nebraska had a healthy lead over the Cow­boys, 24–7.

In the fourth quar­ter the Huskers tacked on a pair of touch­downs on the Pokes. One touch­down was on a pass to receiver Kenny Bell and another on a short rush by Bray­lon Heard. The Pokes wouldn’t go qui­etly into the night, how­ever, and made it into the end­zone for a sec­ond time. This time it was a pass to Robert Her­ron who put points on the board. The game wasn’t very close, but it could have got­ten even more out-of-hand. The Huskers had another easy drive down the field and could have tacked on more points to the score­board. Luck­ily, the head coach was a lit­tle classier than that. After dri­ving the ball deep into the red­zone, the coach had his play­ers kneel on the ball to end the game.

It’s not likely that the #9 Huskers 4–0 will sky-rocket up the rank­ings with their win, but they might move up a notch or two. The Cow­boys 3–1 have a much deserved bye week com­ing up before they head off to play against a 1–2 Utah State team. The Pokes didn’t have a bye last sea­son, but logic would sug­gest that the time to recover couldn’t hurt. The Cow­boys still have high hopes this sea­son and with a few more wins under their belt, you might be hear­ing Bowl talk by the time the leaves have all fallen.

Cow­boys hur­dle Bobcats

On a gor­geous Sat­ur­day after­noon, the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Cow­boys 1–0 (0−0 MWC) took on the Texas State Bob­cats 0–1 at War Memo­r­ial Sta­dium in front of over 23,000 fans.
The Pokes came out sport­ing their new flat, brown hel­mets with a slight alter­ation. The team had replaced the plain brown Steam­boat on their hel­mets with some­thing a lit­tle more patri­otic. The hel­mets hon­ored those lost in the tragedy of 9/11 with a US flag Steam­boat.
It was a daz­zling sight to see the flag every­where while many were hon­ored on game day. Those who were hon­ored ranged from those directly involved in 9/11, to the Wyoming 8 who were killed just days after 9/11, to Cow­boys foot­ball player Ruben Nar­cisse, to the many Wyoming cit­i­zens who had given their lives to defend our majes­tic nation.

A patri­otic glimpse

Wyoming won the coin toss and elected to start the game on offense. The Cow­boys had lit­tle suc­cess on their first drive and were forced to punt and give the ball to the Bob­cats. The Bob­cats cashed in on their first pos­ses­sion with a long drive fol­lowed by a field goal, which put them on the board up 3–0 on the Pokes. Wyoming found their stride in their sec­ond pos­ses­sion and had lit­tle trou­ble mov­ing down the field. Their drive was high­lighted by a long rush and a rush­ing touch­down. The score put the Cow­boys up for the first time with the score at 7–3 in favor of the Pokes. The Bob­cats started their sec­ond pos­ses­sion with an inter­cep­tion on the first play of the drive. That play gave the Pokes the ball already inside the red­zone. Wyoming quickly scored a rush­ing touch­down to notch the score at 14–3 in their favor. The Bob­cats began to drive but gave up a fum­ble to cough up the ball back to Wyoming. The Pokes were unable to con­vert a fourth down attempt and gave the ball back after an incom­plete pass attempt. The first quar­ter ended with the Wyoming Cow­boys ahead of the Texas State Bob­cats 14–3.
The Bob­cats wasted no time to start the sec­ond quar­ter by march­ing straight down the field with lit­tle resis­tance. The Bob­cats got their first touch­down with a rush by Ter­rence Franks to put the Bob­cats within strik­ing dis­tance at 14–10. The rest of the quar­ter was dom­i­nated mostly by the two defenses. For­tu­nately, Wyoming was able to drive as the half came to an end and kicked a field goal as the first half expired. The last-second field goal put the Cow­boys up by a touch­down at 17–10.

The Texas State Bob­cats were led in the first half by run­ning back Franks, quar­ter­back Tyler Arndt, and defen­sive back Xavier Daniels. Banks ran for 44 yards and a touch­down on his five car­ries. Arndt went 5-for-6 for 36 yards but was sacked three times. Daniels had a total of eight tack­les, six unas­sisted and two assisted.
Wyoming was led sta­tis­ti­cally by quar­ter­back Brett Smith, wide receiver Dominic Rufran, and run­ning­back Bran­don Miller. Smith went 9-for-20 with 132 yards in the air. Rufran caught four passes for 87 yards. Miller car­ried the ball five times for 51 yards and a touch­down in the half.

As the sec­ond half got mov­ing it looked as though the entire game could be a defen­sive bat­tle. The Cow­boys were ice cold to start the half as the fresh­man quar­ter­back, Smith, threw his first inter­cep­tion of the sea­son. The Bob­cats were unable to score on the turnover and Wyoming imme­di­ately made them pay. With a few big plays down field the Pokes closed the dis­tance to the end­zone quickly. The Cow­boys scored by way of a tremen­dous 26 yard rush by Smith in which he escaped two near-tackles before his score. This put the Cow­boys up on Texas State by a score of 24–10. Before the third quar­ter ended, the Bob­cats got the ball back but were forced to punt back to the Cow­boys as the quar­ter ended. The third quar­ter ended with the Cow­boys up 24–10.
Wyoming started with the ball in the final quar­ter. They matric­u­lated the ball down the field with rel­a­tive ease, along with the two penal­ties which kept their drive alive. Smith hit Alvester Alexan­der for a 40 yard pass out of the back­field to get within the red­zone. After a few plays, Smith keeps the ball and breaks a cou­ple of tack­les for his sec­ond rush­ing touch­down of the game and the third of his short career. This put the Cow­boys up 31–10 and put the game out of reach for the Bob­cats. After the Cow­boys held the Bob­cats to lit­tle, if any­thing, they quickly scored for the nail in the cof­fin of Texas State. The touch­down pass went to wide receiver Chris McNeill increas­ing the dif­fer­en­tial to 38–10. In an extreme attempt to get back into the game the Bob­cats threw in a lit­tle trick-eration with an attempted Statue of Lib­erty play which led to an inter­cep­tion for the defense on great cov­er­age by the defen­sive back. On the very next play, Smith’s pass is deflected and inter­cepted by Texas State. It was Smith’s sec­ond inter­cep­tion of the game. Texas State tried to score to save some pride on the long jour­ney home, but the 30 yard field goal sailed wide-left and kept the score at 38–10. Unfor­tu­nately for the Bob­cats, the Cow­boys didn’t let off the gas. Wyoming pos­ses­sion didn’t last long after a fan­tas­tic run by run­ning­back Ghaali Muham­mad for another touch­down. The score moved up to 45–10 and that’s what it would be at the con­clu­sion of the game.

Fresh­man QB B.Smith

The game ended with Wyoming on top, but it wasn’t for lack-of-effort on the part of the Texas State. The Bob­cats were sta­tis­ti­cally led by Franks, Arndt, and wide receiver Dar­ius Bolden. Franks fin­ished with eight car­ries for a total of 46 yards and a touch­down. Arndt split play­ing time with fel­low quar­ter­back Shaun Ruther­ford. Arndt fin­ished at 7-for-14 with 54 yards and an inter­cep­tion. Ruther­ford went 5-for-9 with 58 yards and an inter­cep­tion. Bolden fin­ished with four recep­tions and 49 yards.
Wyoming had a vastly supe­rior day sta­tis­ti­cally than they did last week. The Pokes were led on the ground by run­ning­back Ghaali Muham­mad with ten car­ries for 123 yards and a touch­down. Through the air the Pokes were led by Rufran with five recep­tions for 96 yards. The leader of the pack, how­ever, was none other then fresh­man quar­ter­back Brett Smith. Smith went 16-for-31 with 236 yards, a touch­down, and a pair of inter­cep­tions, but he also had two rush­ing touch­downs with 73 yards on nine carries.

It was an enor­mous win for the Cow­boys 2–0 (0−0 MWC) after they had strug­gled might­ily against Weber State last week. For­tu­nately, Wyoming has been able to col­lect some momen­tum head­ing into their next few games. Next week the Cow­boys will be on the road to face Bowl­ing Green 2–0 (0−0 MAC). Hope­fully, they will be able to keep a lit­tle steam rolling for when they host the #10 Nebraska Corn­huskers 2–0 (0−0 Big Ten) on Sep­tem­ber 24^th in Laramie.

Cow­boys hur­dle the Bobcats

Cow­boys Beat Weber State

The Cow­boys Started the sea­son off right with a win over Weber State.

44–0 vic­tory brings new hope for 2011

David Leonard cel­e­brates the pokes vic­tory and raises the Bronze Boot in cel­e­bra­tion. (Jeremy Stegall/LFP)

On Sat­ur­day after­noon the Wyoming Cow­boys 3–9 (1−7 MWC) took on the Col­orado State Rams 3–9 (2−6 MWC) in the 102^nd meet­ing in the Bor­der War. The Cow­boys are com­ing off of six straight losses and need any momen­tum they can sal­vage head­ing into the off-season. The Rams are com­ing off of back-to-back MWC losses and had only won one of their pre­vi­ous four games. Both teams needed a win to send them into the off-season with opti­mism for the 2011 season.

In the first quar­ter both defenses came to play. The first spark of offense came in Wyoming’s sec­ond drive. The spark was lit by a lat­eral to Austyn Carta-Samuels who ran for 37 yards to put the ball on the one-yard line. The Cow­boys scored on the very next play, a one yard touch­down run for Alvester Alexan­der. The drive put the Cow­boys up 6–0 after a botched PAT. In the fol­low­ing drive, CSU quar­ter­back Pete Thomas threw an inter­cep­tion on the sec­ond play of the drive to Tashaun Gip­son. The pick was Gipson’s third of the sea­son and sixth of his career. The Cow­boys cap­i­tal­ized on the early turnover with a 20 yard field goal to put the Pokes up 9–0 over CSU with 4:22 left in the first quar­ter. The Rams began their next drive by get­ting into Cow­boy ter­ri­tory but were stuffed in their rush­ing attempts and turned the ball over on downs. To end the first quar­ter Wyoming pushes the ball into Ram ter­ri­tory and is ahead 9–0. Carta-Samuels went 8-of-9 with 80 yards in the air and 34 yards on the ground to end the quar­ter. … Con­tinue Reading

Cow­boys get crushed by UNLV

Las Vegas — The Cow­boys fell to the UNLV Rebels 16–42 in Las Vegas on Sat­ur­day night. The Cowboy’s opened the game with a touch­down within the first 19 sec­onds of the game to make the score 7–0. They fol­lowed that up with an unsuc­cess­ful on-side kick. At the end of the first half the Pokes left the field with the score 21–13 in favor of the Rebels. The Cow­boys never took the lead again and quickly fell behind.

With less than two min­utes left in the game, #6 Robert Her­ron was tack­led by Starr Fuimaono and had to be wheeled off the field in an ambu­lance. Pre­lim­i­nary reports from after the game indi­cate that Her­ron suf­fered no seri­ous injuries. Her­ron will be held overnight at Sun­rise hos­pi­tal in Las Vegas for observation.

Final score 16–42 UNLV … Con­tinue Reading

Pokes defeated by Lobos, 34–31, with 4 sec­onds on the clock

Brian Hen­dricks, #8 and Chris Prosin­ski, 24 attempt to stop the unstop­pable Lobos quar­ter­back, Stump God­frey. (Jeremy Stegall/LFP)

It was a com­edy of errors on the field in New Mex­ico this after­noon. The pokes fum­bled 3 times in the red zone and gave up another inter­cep­tion. The Pokes and the Lobos traded points the entire game until the clock was paused by a Lobos time­out with 4 sec­onds left in the game and a tie score of 31–31. With only 4 sec­onds on the clock, the Lobos used their field posi­tion to kick one final field goal for a 34–31 win over Wyoming. The Lobos are now 1–8 for the season.