Wyoming Cowboys Season Preview

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From 2000-02, the Wyoming Cowboys were in the basement of the Mountain West Conference, and to be honest, nobody outside of myself and Laramie actually knew they were attempting to play Division I Football. 

Joe Glenn took over as the coach in ’03 and went just 30-41 with only one bowl appearance (the ’04 Las Vegas-UCLA upset).  

His Cowboys were not that bad defensively, going 102nd, 67th, 61st, 9th, 22nd and 38th.

That was not the problem, as it is safe to say that when your offense is as bad as it was for the Cowboys—you are going to have some issues. The offense was putrid, going 82nd, 62nd, 65th, 91st, 106th and 108th.

Wyoming Must Cowboy Up

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Dave Christensen has taken over, and though he is just 10-15 through two seasons, the offense has surprisingly gotten worse. In ’09 they ranked 107th and in '10 they ranked 116th. What the hell is going on in Laramie?

For the starters, they have almost never had one of the better RB/WR combos in the conference, and did I mention that I could arguably start at quarterback for them?

Well, maybe I could not start, but you get the point on how poorly the Cowboys' quarterback era has been. Their best man under center in years was Austyn Carta-Samuels, and he decided out of the blue hell to just transfer to a JC since he was not a lock to start this season.

That leaves the job to one of the highest recruits in Cowboy history as Brett Smith (6'3", 195-pound top 100 QB recruit) looks to change the atmosphere.

Departing Star

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Their lone star offensively will be RB Alvester Alexander (5'11", 204 pounds), who ran for 792 yards and 14 TDs. The sad news was that the No. 2 rusher was their quarterback Carta-Samuels, with just 392.

The offense as a whole returns seven, with four of their linemen back. I rank their line as the sixth-best in the MWC, which for most teams—with their entire line back—would be a slap in the face. Overall, this offense has nowhere to go but up since it has been historically the worst in the MWC.

Speaking of bad, Wyoming has the second-worst record of any MWC team in the past 10 years, (21-55 MWC) the third-worst in five years (13-27 tied for second-worst technically) and three years (6-18).

Unheralded Defense

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The defense also has seven returning, but unlike the offense, this defense is going to be very good for MWC standards. They have two speed/bull-rushers in Gabe Knapton and Josh Biezuns.

The two combined for 10.5 sacks and 7.5 tackle for losses. The entire front four returns, and for that, I rank this front four as the third-best in the MWC, behind Boise and TCU.

The linebacking corps has been horrid, but it should improve with the return of their lone semi-stud in Brian Hendricks. His 80 tackles a season ago was his total and most expect him to eclipse 100 this season.

The secondary has a solid corner in Tashaun Gipson (6'0", 208-pound senior) and the back four ranked 42nd because of it. It also helped that teams were going bonkers against the Cowboys' front seven, but some credit still deserved to go towards Wyoming. 

Drama's Forecast

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Their schedule is fairly as they could sleepwalk through a few games early on against Weber State and Texas State.

They have six tough games against Boise State, Nebraska, TCU, Air Force, SDST and Colorado State. The other four FBS opponents are Bowling Green, Utah St, UNLV and New Mexico.

I see them splitting those four and getting to at least four, possibly five wins. Still, they should fall an upset or two away from a bowl game in 2011.

Predicted Finish: 4-8, 2-5

Predicted Bowl: None

Predicted order of finish in MWC: Sixth