Pokes Position Breakdown: Defensive Tackles

LARAMIE -- Wyoming football season is right around the corner.

Jay Sawvel and his team will hit the practice fields in Laramie July 28, kicking off training camp just 31 days ahead of the Cowboys Thursday night opener at Akron.

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Nearly 50 new players -- both freshmen and portal signings -- litter this new-look roster as this program attempts to put a disappointing 3-9 season even further in the rear-view mirror. Hopefully you're learning about all the new faces in our summer series Welcome to Wyoming Football.

According to ESPN, UW returns 56% of its production (104 combined starts) from last season, including its leading rusher (Sam Scott), receiver (Jaylen Sargent) and tight end (John Michael Gyllenborg). Three offensive linemen -- Wes King, Jack Walsh and Caden Barnett -- are back in the fold, too. So is quarterback Kaden Anderson, who took the reins late in 2024.

Now, let's break down this team, position by position, ahead of Mountain West Media Days July 16-17 in Las Vegas:

PLAYERS | *Dante Drake, *Ben Florentine, Jayden Williams, Lucas Samsula, Caleb Robinson, Aneesh Vyas, Alex Haswell, Cody Crawford, Tegen Seeds, Henry Rehberg, Gabriel Ikechukwu,  (* - Presumed starter)

POSITION COACH | Deonte Gibson - 1st season

WHAT TO WATCH | Ben Florentine, who has arguably the coolest nickname in the history of nicknames -- "Mustard Gas" -- will be back to his old tricks, clogging up the middle. If his numbers improve, look out. Jayden Williams also returns, coming off a 28-tackle redshirt freshman campaign. Sawvel wanted size on the interior. He found it in 305-pound Aneesh Vyas, a Bucknell transfer with four years of experience. Lucas Samsula, who returns from injury, along with Williams, also tip the scales at 300-plus. Drake isn't far off at 292. Can Caleb Robinson and Samsula bounce back from season-ending injuries in 2024? Can they overcome the loss of Dante Drake, who will likely miss the entire campaign with an Achilles injury?

SUMMARY | This unit tallied just two of the Cowboys' 15 sacks a season ago. That must improve, and should, with more "ass" in the trenches, as Sawvel likes to say. The alarming stat in 2024 was 191.7. That's the average number of rushing yards allowed by this defense. That ranked eighth in the Mountain West and 111th overall. Not cutting it. New Mexico made lightwork of the Cowboys' front four in an early November meeting in Albuquerque, gashing the visitors to the tune of 412 yards on the ground. Two ball carriers were responsible for all of that damage: running back Eli Sanders and QB Devon Dampier. Wyoming will face the latter when Utah pays a visit to War Memorial Stadium in September. There's a reason Sawvel fired Jeff Phelps after one year on the job. Jordan Bertagnole will be the first to tell you his final season on the high plains was a major disappointment. Lingering injuries definitely played a role in that 25-tackle, 0.5-sacks performance. There were bright spots, like the play of Jayden Williams who nearly tallied 30 tackles in his first college action. Florentine added 25 more and a QB takedown. Drake capped his year with eight stops, five coming against San Diego State. Bottom line: This unit needs to deliver. While the offensive line drives the train on offense, it all starts up front on defense, too. This group, as a collective, was put on skates and bullied far too often. It appears those days are over under a demanding Deonte Gibson, who showed his compete level day in and day out this spring. Don't underestimate the return of Caleb Robinson and Sumsula. Those two are playmakers and expected to make this the deepest unit on this new-look defense.

QUOTABLE | "Some of those defensive tackles are kind of loads in there, you know? I mean, there's four 300-pound bodies in there, so they're hard to continually move and some things that way. We'll have to go back and watch the video and see if there was (breakdowns), you know, we had a couple good runs and some stuff like that, but I think that the defensive tackle group, in particular, held on very well on that side of the line of scrimmage. There weren't continual run lanes," UW head coach Jay Sawvel said last April at the conclusion of the annual spring game.

- University of Wyoming’s Top 50 Football Players