  Standard lore states that there is tension between the need to accommodate
the relic density of a weakly interacting massive particle and direct searches
for dark matter. However, the estimation of the relic density rests on an
extrapolation of the cosmology of the early Universe to the time of freeze out,
untethered by observations. We explore a nonstandard cosmology in which the
strong coupling constant evolves in the early Universe, triggering an early
period of QCD confinement at the time of freeze out. We find that depending on
the nature of the interactions between the dark matter and the Standard Model,
freeze out during an early period of confinement can lead to drastically
different expectations for the relic density, allowing for regions of parameter
space which realize the correct abundance but would otherwise be excluded by
direct searches.
