Pokes Football: Best of Colorado – No. 4
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. 4 - Brian Lee
Safety, 1994-97, Arvada, Colorado
Résumé in Laramie
Colorado State quarterback Moses Moreno took a three-step drop, looked to his left and fired a slant pass. Awaiting the throw was Brian Lee. He played for Wyoming. After picking off the pass, the Arvada, Colo., native harmlessly fell to the ground. That interception capped a 25-24 victory inside a frigid Hughes Stadium, giving the Cowpokes to a 10-1 regular-season record and vaulting the visitors into the inaugural WAC Championship game. That was one of a school record 17 career interceptions for Lee. He also set the single-season marks in 1996 and '97 with eight picks. The ball-hawking safety also owns the single-game record for interceptions, snagging three against SMU in 1996 and Montana the following season. Lee led the NCAA in 1997, averaging 0.73 interceptions per game. He also returned two for touchdowns during his four-year stint in Laramie. At the conclusion of the '97 campaign, Lee was named a consensus All-American by the Football Writers of America, Football News, Walter Camp Football Foundation and Associated Press. Lee won the Admiral Land Award as UW’s top student-athlete in 1998.
About Arvada
A suburb of Denver and the seventh-most populated city in Colorado, Arvada bleeds into two counties and is home to more than 124,000 residents. Hall of Fame pitcher Roy Halladay is from Arvada.
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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