Pokes Football: Best of Colorado – No. 7
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. 7 - Tanner Gentry
Wide receiver, 2013-16, Aurora, Colorado
Résumé in Laramie
This guy sure made snagging those Josh Allen fastballs look easy, didn't he? Tanner Gentry hauled in 180 passes during his four-year career on the high plains. He turned that production into 2,815 receiving yards, which is still good enough for fifth today behind some prominent names like Marcus Harris, Ryan Yarborough, Jovon Bouknight and Wendell Montgomery. Arguably Gentry's most-impressive game -- and there were plenty of those -- came in a loss. That was a 69-66 triple-overtime setback in Sin City. That afternoon, Gentry hauled in a modest five passes against UNLV's secondary. Despite that, he turned those into 184 receiving yards and three scores, including an unreal one-handed catch as time expired in regulation. Gentry was a second-team All-Mountain West selection as a senior after hauling in 72 balls for 1,326 yards and 14 touchdowns. That is the sixth-best single-season mark in program history. Gentry capped his career with 20 touchdown catches in a Wyoming uniform. That's still tied with Robert Herron for the fourth most in the UW record books.
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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