Pokes Football: Best of Colorado – No. 11
LARAMIE -- No other state has been more of a recruiting hotbed for the University of Wyoming than Colorado.
This list will prove that.
Numerous UW Hall of Famers, NFL stars and program record holders began their football journey in that square to the south. The Cowboys' top rival, Colorado State, overlooked plenty of these guys. So did CU. Air Force even whiffed a time or two.
Some just flat out picked Laramie over Fort Collins, Boulder and Colorado Springs.
This summer, with the help of some longtime Wyoming football followers, we will count down the Top 25 Colorado products in program history. As always, what these guys did in professional football doesn't matter. This is all about production in Laramie.
No. 11 - Mike Schenbeck
Linebacker, 1985-88, Aurora, Colorado
Résumé in Laramie
Over his final two seasons at Wyoming, Mike Schenbeck tallied 189 tackles to go along with an interception, two fumble recoveries, 12 pass breakups and a pair of sacks. The Aurora, Colo., product racked up 106 of those stops as a junior. The following year, he was named to the All-Western Athletic Conference First Team and garnered honorable mention All-American honors. Most importantly, Schenbeck led the Cowboys to back-to-back WAC titles under new head coach Paul Roach, anchoring a dominating defense that featured the likes of Mitch Donahue, Galand Thaxton, Eric Coleman, Pat Rabold and many others. Wyoming appeared in consecutive Holiday Bowls, falling to Iowa and Oklahoma State, respectively. Schenbeck played for three different head coaches in Laramie, beginning with Al Kincaid before spending a season with Dennis Erickson. Schenbeck was inducted into the UW Athletics Hall of Fame in 2020.
About Aurora
Home to nearly 387,000 residents, Aurora encompasses three counties in the suburbs of Denver. That population makes the city the third largest in the state. Nicknamed the "Gateway to the Rockies," Aurora stretches to the eastern plains. Zachery Ty Bryan (actor - Home Improvement) once lived here. So did Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live) and John Kerry (Politician).
Pokes Football: Best of Colorado series:
Pokes Football: Best of Wyoming series
(Cody Tucker and Jared Newland both work for Townsquare Media, which owns 7220sports.com. Kevin McKinney has been a color commentator of Cowboy football for five decades. Ryan Thorburn now works for the University of Wyoming in a sports information role after spending decades in the newspaper industry, most recently at the Casper Star-Tribune. Sally Ann Shurmur, the daughter of former UW football coach Fritz Shurmur, is also a veteran of the newspaper industry, working as a journalist, columnist at the CST for 43 years. She currently writes for Cowboy State Daily.)
University of Wyoming’s Top 50 Football Players
Gallery Credit: 7220Sports.com
- University of Wyoming’s Top 50 Football Players
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