Pokes Football: Best of Colorado – No. 6
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. 6 - Eddie Yarbrough
Defensive end, 2012-15, Aurora, Colorado
Résumé in Laramie
No one has more career tackles behind the line of scrimmage in Wyoming history than Eddie Yarbrough. His 39 tackles for loss is still the standard, three more than John Fletcher. The Aurora, Colo., native wrapped up a dozen TFL's in 2013, including 3.5 against Idaho. He brought down UNLV ball carriers four times. That's tied for the most ever at UW in a single game. Yarbrough was also a prolific pass rusher in Laramie. He tallied 21.5 sacks, seven of which came during his senior season. Three of those came in a single game against the Vandals. One of Craig Bohl's admitted "favorite players" capped his tenure at UW with 256 tackles. He added four forced fumbles and recoveries and broke up the same number of passes. Yarbrough was named First Team All-Mountain West as a sophomore and junior. He led all conference linemen in tackles in both seasons. He tacked on a Second-Team nod in '15. Prior to that final year, Yarbrough was named to the 2014 Rotary Lombardi Watch List and the 2014 Ted Hendricks Award Watch List. He was also an All-American candidate. Yarbrough signed with the Denver Broncos as an undrafted free agent in 2016. He also spent time in Buffalo, Minnesota and San Francisco during his six-year pro career.
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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