Wyoming Football: News and Notes Ahead of North Texas

LARAMIE -- 9.5.

That was the number of points Wyoming was putting on the scoreboard back in 2021, during a forgettable four-game skid.

To make matters even worse, it was smack dab at the beginning of conference play.

A three-win New Mexico team allowed just a field goal inside War Memorial Stadium. Fresno State's defense pitched a shutout a week prior. Air Force did the same during the second half of a 24-14 victory in Colorado Springs.

Sean Chambers started all three of those under center.

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He was replaced by Levi Williams prior to the trip to San Jose State. The Cowboys' offense did find the end zone three times, but the end result remained the same.

Jay Sawvel Monday compared that stretch to the three-game losing streak his team is currently facing. Then the defensive coordinator, Wyoming's rookie head coach said he watched the way his predecessor handled business during those trying times.

"Coach (Craig) Bohl said we have to keep doing this and we have to keep progressing," said Sawvel, who has watched his offense average just 11.3 points per game after a 34-14 loss to BYU last Saturday night in Laramie. "That's what we have to do. We have to create our own momentum, you know? And in order to do that, we've got to keep preparing for it. We have to make the plays when they're available to us and, right now, we've sometimes hit one or two, and then the next thing you know, we miss a couple. It just sets us back."

That '21 squad won three of its next five, including a Border War victory over CSU and a surprising 44-17 road rout of eventual Mountain West Champion Utah State. Bohl's bunch, led by a historic  performance -- 200 yards rushing, four touchdowns -- from Williams, knocked off Kent State 52-38 in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

Who wouldn't take a turnaround like that right about now?

"What happened was, though, we just kept going about the fact that we have to get better," Sawvel said. "We have to execute and control the things that we can control."

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Bohl wasn't the only mentor to do that, Sawvel added. Jerry Kill did at Northern Illinois and Minnesota. Lou Holtz preached that at Notre Dame. So did Sawvel's own college coach, the legendary Larry Kehres, at Mount Union.

Here's the part you might not agree with: He's not about to make any drastic changes.

"The one thing that you don't do -- and you learn this from experience -- is all of a sudden completely cut the tree down after three weeks," Sawvel said. " ... I don't know what they end up, but I think BYU has a pretty good defense. For me to sit there and all of a sudden throw out everything we're going to do offensively, and change quarterbacks, and change all this other stuff based on how we perform against them, I mean, that'd be an overreaction."

The Cowboys will travel to Denton this Saturday to take on a North Texas squad that is coming off a 66-21 setback at Texas Tech. Kickoff is slated for 5 p.m. Mountain Time and the game will be televised on ESPN-Plus.

Here's some other news and notes from Sawvel's weekly press conference:

* The injury list is growing. Dawaiian McNeely, who separated his left thumb in the loss to Idaho, will again be on the shelf after one carry against the Cougars. The senior running back was sidelined with a torn left ACL in 2023 and, according to Sawvel, has another knee injury that will keep him out of the lineup for the foreseeable future. He joins fullback Caleb Driskill, who underwent surgery on a broken thumb the week prior to the BYU game.

* Speaking of thumb injuries, senior safety Wyett Ekeler broke his in last Saturday's loss. Sawvel said he won't miss any time, instead choosing to play with a cast. He will have a surgically placed pin inserted in his hand during the bye week, Sawvel said. Edge rusher DeVonne Harris is still out with an elbow injury and running back Harrison Waylee's return to the Cowboys backfield is not "imminent." Left tackle Nate Geiger also remains on the sidelines with a knee injury.

* How about some welcoming news on this front? Tight end John Michael Gyllenborg did suit up against BYU. He was on the field for a grand total of eight snaps. That, he said Monday, was the plan all along, though he was hoping to hit double-digits. The junior will try again at North Texas, where he hopes to have a bigger role in the offense.

* Does a winless start mean future splintering inside the Cowboys' locker room? That's a resounding "no" if you ask the head coach. "There's no division, there's no pointing fingers or this side's not doing this or this guy didn't do that," Sawvel said, adding that he likes his team's attitude right now. "We're all in it, we all know it and we all understand the fact that what we've got to do to get better." He said he looks for "undercurrents" in times like these, such as, are guys going to get treatments when they're supposed to? Are recruits, which Wyoming had many in Laramie last weekend, showing signs of trouble? Sawvel said he has no worries in these departments.

* Sawvel said he and his staff would identify the Top-10 offensive playmakers in the Cowboys offense and do whatever it takes to get the ball in their hands. He said the top two have played a combined eight snaps this season. You guessed it, those guys are Waylee and Gyllenborg. Still, this offensive unit, through three games, has been statistically one of the worst in the sport. That used to be a title reserved for the passing offense. The Cowboys, so far, can't run, either. "Look, I feel the frustration because I see the frustration," he said. "I have to wear the frustration in the fact that I think that we need to be better offensively. We need to be more productive offensively, and all those things. We have a new system, a new quarterback, and then you're also having players emerge like Clay Nanke and TK King and Jaylen Sargent, and things like that. So, there's still a finding-out- way process that we're working through a little bit, in that regard."

* How bad has it been? Wyoming's passing offense is ranked 128th out of 133 programs, averaging just 114.7 yards per game. The rushing aspect hasn't been much better. The Cowboys, led by DJ Jones, amass just 87 yards an outing. That ranks 120th overall. That all equates to 201.7 yards and game. Only Kent State has had worse production at 201.3. The Golden Flashed lost to Tennessee 71-0 last Saturday in Knoxville.

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