Some notes and quotes for Saturday's Wyoming football game vs. UC Davis. Kickoff is at 2 p.m. MT at Jonah Field at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie.
— The game won't be on conventional TV, but will be televised on WyoVision at UW's athletics website — GoWyo.com — and on the Mountain West Network online at TheMW.com/watch-live and CampusInsiders.com. The game also can be viewed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/i/live/774470758831497216. The official hashtag for the game is #WYOvs.UCD.
The first day of summer is upon us, and it's that time of year when many sports fans are counting the days until football season — more specifically college football season.
Many of the preseason college football publications are out there, and as you probably can imagine, junior running back Brian Hill is getting a lot of attention.
Lindy's college football preview magazine lists Hill as the 18th-best running back in the country. Twenty-five running backs were ranked, and two other running backs in the Mountain West were ranked ahead of Hill — San Diego State senior Donnel Pumphrey was eighth and Boise State junior Jeremy McNichols was 17th.
When watching Andrew Wingard play free safety for Wyoming, what do you immediately think of?
Obviously, just how hard and well he plays the game. As a true freshman last season, Wingard earned First Team Freshman All-America honors by the Football Writers Association of America. He also was a Second Team All-Mountain West selection as he ranked first in the conference and fourth in the nation with 6.9 solo tackles per game (83 total). Wingard also was second in the conference and 12th nationally with 10.2 tackles per contest (122 total).
But what else? It has to be his long, blonde hair.
Perhaps it is better late than never in terms of a bye week for Wyoming football.
The Cowboys are off this week before they play their last game a week from Saturday at home against UNLV.
Here's what coach Craig Bohl had to say about the bye week, last week's game with San Diego State and even some stuff about recruiting from his weekly news conference Monday.
I've received some feeback from fans, and even some of my family who follows Wyoming, that they think the team is improving and showing some good signs for the future.
I don't totally disagree with them, but still, UW lost 34-14 to Boise State Saturday night. To me, it felt like an even more lopsided loss.
UW was never in this game. It trailed 17-0 after one quarter and 24-7 at halftime. Boise State scored the first four times its offense touched the ball. It put together long and short scoring drives. It ran the ball at will, with 166 of its 207 yards coming from sophomore running back Jeremy McNichols. The Broncos threw only six incomplete passes. And, they had only one turnover compared to eight the week before.
UW's offense had a season-low 233 yards and converted just 3 of 10 third-downs. Boise State made 12 of 19, UW may have lost redshirt senior quarterback Cameron Coffman to a shoulder injury for a while. However, a source close to the program told me Sunday Coffman's injury isn't considered to be too serious and there is a chance he will play Friday at Utah State.
Speed and athleticism were the biggest factors in Wyoming moving junior D.J. May from running back to linebacker.
There was a lot of anticipation for how this move would go, but it was tempered during the spring when May was limited as he recovered from knee surgery that ended his 2014 season after six games.
Once the 2015 started, UW struggled so much defensively — and in other areas — that is was difficult to come up with a lot of positives.
But May has been a positive for the Cowboys' defense. Now a strong-side outside linebacker/nickel back, May leads UW with seven pass break-ups, and is fifth on the team with 32 tackles. May was one of three players who tied for team-high honors with nine tackles in the Cowboys' 28-21 win over Nevada last Saturday — UW's first win of the season.