Pokes Position Breakdown: Defensive Ends

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 | *Tyce Westland, *Brayden Wilson, Esaia Bogar. Eltoum Murgus, Jordan Turnbull, Cade Brook, Chisom Ifeanyi, Peter Eyabi, Kevin Sjogren, Tell Wade, Jason Handy, Axel Ramazani (* - Presumed starter)

POSITION COACH | Brian Hendricks - 3rd season

WHAT TO WATCH | Can Tyce Westland become the leader of this unit in more ways than just being the last man standing from last year's defensive ends room? Can the senior double his sack total -- if not more -- from three to six? Brayden Wilson was an all-conference performer at Weber State over the last two seasons. Will that translate to the FBS level? Wyoming will be taking on Colorado, not Northern Colorado, this September. There's a difference. Can Peter Eyabi prove once again why he was once a Pac-12 recruit? He did plenty of damage at the junior college level. Again, this is different. Much different. Esaia Bogar, Eyabi's former teammate at Riverside City College, was the National Southern Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2024. He tallied 10 of his 23 career sacks last season. Same question: Does that happen against the likes of UNLV, Air Force and Colorado State? This group is intriguing. It will be fun to see who emerges.

SUMMARY | Sabastian Harsh entered the NCAA Transfer Portal in March. He's at North Carolina State. Ethan Day is gone, too, now lining up on the edge at North Texas. Braden Siders is a West Virginia Mountaineer. After six seasons on the roster, DeVonne Harris, is now a reluctant member of the real world. Those four accounted for 7.5 of the Cowboys' 15 total sacks last fall. Wyoming ranked 125th in the country in that category out of 133 FBS programs. It really can't get a whole lot worse. Tyce Westland, the lone returner, was responsible for three of those QB takedowns. The 6-foot-5, 245-pound senior also tallied 41 tackles, the most of anyone in that unit. This team needs all of that, and more, if it hopes to make a living in opposing backfields. Sawvel and Co. did add sacks -- and plenty of experience -- to the room this offseason, starting with Brayden Wilson, who twice was an All-Big Sky selection at Weber State. He finished with 12.5 sacks in that timeframe. Peter Eyabi, who began his career at Washington State, registered 11.5 sacks last season at Riverside City College, the same school that produced Esaia Bogar. He tallied 23 sacks in two seasons at the California JuCo. Chisom Ifeanyi has tallied 12.5 career sacks in stops at Shippensburg University and Florida Atlantic. Depth, along with pure size at the tackle spot (Wyoming features three players inside who weigh more than 300 pounds) should help these edge rushers have more opportunities this fall. If the secondary can take care of business, that can serve as a major boost, too.

QUOTABLE | "When it comes to production, production pays the bills. Clearly we are wanting everything to be really sexy on a stat sheet -- tackles for loss and sacks -- but the No. 1 key we've got to understand is, before you can even do that right now, we've got to start from scratch. We've got to get the basics down," UW defensive ends coach Brian Hendricks said last April.

- University of Wyoming’s Top 50 Football Players