Play­ers and Coaches react to Cow­boy victory

“They were dying to have suc­cess, would do any­thing I asked them to do to win. They believed in what I was ask­ing them to do…It’s a very reward­ing feel­ing, as a foot­ball coach, to know that you had that type of senior lead­er­ship to lay a foun­da­tion to where this team is going…It (the game) makes a huge state­ment to the direc­tion of which we are tak­ing this pro­gram,” said coach Dave Chris­tensen fol­low­ing their dou­ble OT vic­tory at the New Mex­ico Bowl.

Excite­ment for all was the order of the day. It didn’t mat­ter whether you were root­ing for the Bull­dogs, cheer­ing on the Pokes, or enjoy­ing a con­fer­ence foe play­ing in a bowl and hop­ing that they win to ben­e­fit the con­fer­ence. Even if you aren’t much a fan of foot­ball, you would have prob­a­bly been on your feet at the end of this game.

It is hard for some to nar­row down aspects of an amaz­ing game that were directly tied to a team’s vic­tory, but it wasn’t dif­fi­cult on a gor­geous Sat­ur­day in Albu­querque. The entire game came down to one turnover and two dif­fer­ent key pos­ses­sions. The turnover was a stripped ball from senior defen­sive line­man, Mitch Unrein (6 tack­les, 2 sacks, and a forced fumble/fumble recov­ery), that didn’t get notice, other than Unrein, until the play was reviewed and the Cow­boys got the ball with time tick-tick-ticking away.

The first impor­tant pos­ses­sion was late in the 4^th quar­ter, when Austyn Carta-Samuels (17−31 with 201 yards pass­ing, 3 touch­downs, and 71 yards rush­ing) did all that he could to sus­tain a drive by rush­ing and pass­ing for first downs, three times on fourth downs in the Cow­boys final drive in reg­u­la­tion. The sec­ond huge pos­ses­sion came when the Cow­boys were on a defen­sive goal line stand and stuffed the Bulldog’s best attempts at get­ting into the end zone four times from within a yard. … Con­tinue Reading

Wyoming wins New Mex­ico Bowl 35–28

The Wyoming Cow­boys 6–6 (4−4) defeated the Fresno State Bull­dogs 8–4 (6−2) in dou­ble over­time 35–28 and win the 4^th annual New Mex­ico Bowl.  The game was broad­cast live on ESPN with 24,898 fans in attendance.

These two teams both came to defend their team’s cher­ished legacy. Fresno State has been a peren­nial par­tic­i­pant in the bowl scene and has been to almost as many bowls in the last 15 years as the Pokes have been to in their entire his­tory. The Cow­boys came into the game with some­thing to prove against the favored Bull­dogs. For­tu­nately, the Cow­boys had a much larger fan base on site to root them on.

In the 1^st quar­ter, on the Pokes sec­ond pos­ses­sion, the offen­sive line opened up a huge gap and allowed Alvester Alexan­der to rush for a 68-yard touch­down after shak­ing off a tackle. Wyoming took the first lead of the game 7–0. On the next drive Fresno State made their way down the field with some ease, but fum­bled inside Wyoming’s 10-yard line. The Cow­boys couldn’t cap­i­tal­ize on the turnover. … Con­tinue Reading

Inside the New Mex­ico Bowl: Wyoming vs. Fresno St.

Decem­ber 19^th in Albu­querque, NM the col­lege foot­ball bowl sea­son will open with the Wyoming Cow­boys 6–6 (4−4 MWC) fac­ing the Fresno State Bull­dogs 8–4 (6−2 WAC) on ESPN. The Cow­boys and Bull­dogs come into the bowl with a split record of 3–3 in games past.

Fresno State is return­ing to The New Mex­ico Bowl for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year. The Bull­dogs are 4–5 in the post­sea­son under Head Coach Pat Hill. Last year, the Bull­dogs faced the win­ner of the Bor­der War in the New Mex­ico Bowl, just as they will this year. Fresno State faced CSU last year and were defeated 40–35 by the Rams.

The Bull­dogs have had some stiff com­pe­ti­tion in the WAC this sea­son but have still been able to score at least 20 points in all but one game this sea­son. Fresno State has a high-octane offense led by running-back Ryan Matthews (1,664 yards, 17 TD) and quar­ter­back Ryan Col­burn (2,333 yards, 18 TD, 11 INT), that will likely keep the Cowboy’s hands full until the final sec­onds of the game.

The Wyoming Cow­boys have made it to a bowl game for the first time since 2004 when they upset UCLA 24–21 in an epic bat­tle in Las Vegas. Dave Chris­tensen has done what few
oth­ers have accom­plished by get­ting Wyoming to a bowl game in his rookie sea­son as head coach for the Cow­boys. This is Wyoming’s 12^th appear­ance in a bowl game. … Con­tinue Reading

Cow­boys to play Fresno State in New Mex­ico Bowl

Mon­day after­noon, the Cow­boys were invited to play Fresno State in the 4^th annual New Mex­ico Bowl in Albu­querque on Decem­ber 19^th.

Wyoming will be mak­ing its first appear­ance in a bowl game since 2004 when the Pokes upset the UCLA Bru­ins in Las Vegas. The Cow­boys 6–6 (4−4) will face off against the Fresno State Bull­dogs 8–4 (6−2) for Wyoming’s twelfth appear­ance in a bowl game and first appear­ance in the New Mex­ico Bowl.

Dur­ing the accep­tance of the invi­ta­tion Coach Dave Chris­tensen said he was proud of how far his team had come this year and that it was largely due to senior lead­er­ship and the hard work of his coach­ing staff. Coach Chris­tensen briefly reflected on the day that he accepted Wyoming’s invi­ta­tion to become head coach for the Cowboys.

“I made a cou­ple procla­ma­tions at that time and they weren’t promises about num­bers of wins… But we set an expec­ta­tion level. We set that expec­ta­tion with our foot­ball team and set an expec­ta­tion level with our fan-base… That was expect­ing to win, expect­ing to com­pete for con­fer­ence cham­pi­onships, and expect­ing to play in bowl games. In a short year we’ve been able to reach at least two of those expec­ta­tions by win­ning and going to a bowl game. And we don’t plan on stop­ping at that.” … Con­tinue Reading

LHS hosts first Nordic ski meet of season

The Laramie High School Nordic Ski Team hosted the first high school Nordic race of the year at Happy Jack recre­ation area this Fri­day and Sat­ur­day. The six Wyoming teams com­peted in team sprint races Fri­day and a dis­tance freestyle race Saturday.

Two ath­letes made up each team for the sprint race, con­sist­ing of a .8 km loop around the camp ground, com­pleted a total of six times for var­sity races and four times for junior var­sity races. For the men’s var­sity, Kelly Walsh High School (KWHS) of Casper took first, fol­lowed by Jack­son Hole and Laramie. In the women’s var­sity race, KWHS and Natrona County High School (NCHS) took first, fol­lowed by Jack­son Hole and Lan­der (LVHS) in third. NCHS and KWHS took first in the men’s junior var­sity race, fol­lowed by

LVHS and NCHS. LVHS took first and third in the women’s junior var­sity race with NCHS tak­ing sec­ond. … Con­tinue Reading

Cow­boys nar­rowly edge out Loy­ola Marymount

The Wyoming Cow­boys (3−4) faced the Loy­ola Mary­mount Lions (3−5) Sat­ur­day night in the Arena Audi­to­rium. Both teams had lost two out of their last three games and both teams were hun­gry for a much-needed victory.

The Cow­boys won their last game, against Pep­per­dine, in over­time 86–82 last Sun­day. The Lions also won their last game 91–72 against Acad­emy of Art Uni­ver­sity on Wednes­day. Wyoming started the game look­ing a lit­tle lethar­gic with­out their lead­ing scorer, Afam Muo­jeke, who may return next week.

In the open­ing min­utes, the Pokes shot errat­i­cally and were utterly dom­i­nated on the boards. Some­how, the Cow­boys big men were dom­i­nated by smaller Lions play­ers in the paint. The Cow­boys did much bet­ter at the line then they had ear­lier in the sea­son which was the rea­son they stayed in the game despite a poor shoot­ing per­cent­age from the floor. Wyoming slowly started to pull away from Loy­ola Mary­mount after a severe tongue-lashing from Coach Schroyer dur­ing a time­out inside the four minute mark. After Schroyer got his big men fired up, they finally started to rebound and pull away from Loy­ola Mary­mount before half­time. … Con­tinue Reading

Cow­girls win opener vs. Adams State

The Cow­girls beat the Adams state Griz­zlies 72–36 in the sea­son open­ing exhi­bi­tion game on Mon­day night in the Arena Audi­to­rium. The Cow­girls are now 10–0 against the Grizzlies.

Com­ing off a 16–14 record last sea­son, the Wyoming Cow­girls faced off against Adams State, a team with a 14–14 record last year.The Cow­girls had momen­tum on their side with the long awaited return of redshirt-Junior starter Aubrey Van­diver. The Cow­girls came onto the court with guns-a-blazing.  They took an early 8–0 lead over the Griz­zlies in the open­ing min­utes of the game with two 3-pointers by Van­diver and strong post play by Hilary Carl­son The Cow­girls early lead led them to start hoist­ing up the three-point attempts.  When asked about the large amount of 3-point shots taken (11−29) Van­diver responded, “When they’re falling, we’re going to rely on them. We have a great shoot­ing team.” … Con­tinue Reading