Jay Sawvel: ‘We’ll Play Wyoming Football Again’

LARAMIE -- If it isn't broke, don't fix it, right?

Those were Jay Sawvel's admitted thoughts heading into last fall, his first as a head coach at any level, fresh off a nine-win season.

Turns out, it wasn't quite that simple.

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"What would lie beneath was the fact that we lacked a lot of depth, and we had an imperfect roster, in a number of ways," he said, speaking to the gathered press in July at Mountain West Media Days.

Maybe he didn't give enough credit to leaders like Andrew Peasley, Easton Gibbs and Frank Crum, among others.

Rent came due at a number of positions, too. On defense, oil started to leak at the safety spot. Isaac White struggled with a nagging ankle injury. Wyett Ekeler suffered two broken thumbs, both coming against rival BYU.

"They played every snap for two years," Sawvel added. "Last year, they didn't. OK, well, then all of a sudden, when you had to start looking under the hood at other things, we weren't as far along and prepared as what we needed to be."

Malik Williams, a 6-foot-5, 307-pound left tackle last fall at San Jose State, started all 13 games for the Spartans. He was one of the anchors on a line that allowed just 12 sacks. The passing offense averaged nearly 322 yards an outing. That was tops in the conference and fifth overall in the nation.

He began his career in Laramie. He entered the NCAA Transfer Portal two years later.

Jake Davies and Nate Geiger, both redshirt freshmen with zero playing experience, battled it out during fall camp. The latter eventually won the gig, replacing Crum, now a member of the Denver Broncos.

Geiger lasted just 10 plays into the opener before suffering a season-ending knee injury. Davies was forced into action and, at times, played like the rookie he was.

"He wasn't ready to play," Sawvel said bluntly. "You can't mask certain things."

Wide receiver Devin Boddie Jr. and quarterback Jayden Clemons abruptly left the team midseason. DJ Jones, a running back transfer from North Carolina, never played again after the non-conference slate, fading off the roster for unspecified reasons.

That position group was also in shambles.

Harrison Waylee, for a second consecutive year, suffered a preseason knee injury that forced him to the sidelines. Dawaiian McNeely lasted just two plays.

A once feared backfield managed just under four years per carry.

It didn't help that junior signal caller Evan Svoboda was the least-efficient passer in all of college football, either. He was eventually replaced by Kaden Anderson and made the move to tight end.

Wyoming dropped four one-score games. Five of those setbacks came by a combined 23 points.

The year prior, those close calls turned into victories. The Cowboys eked by Texas Tech (double overtime), Appalachian State, Fresno State and Toledo. Fifteen total points was the difference between being a bowl champion or limping to a 4-8 finish.

That, Sawvel added, is where leadership came in.

The 54-year-old said his phone rang after a disheartening loss last November to Border War rival Colorado State. It was his predecessor Craig Bohl, who didn't mince words. It was 20 minutes of shut-up-and-listen, Sawvel admitted.

Though he didn't divulge the entirety of that conversation, the cliff's notes version was: Regroup. Reevaluate. Recruit.

Bohl finished 3-8 during a forgettable 2009 season at North Dakota State. Two years later, the Bison rattled off three straight FCS National Championships. In 2015, his second go 'round in Laramie, the Cowboys bottomed out at 2-10. The following December, they hosted the Mountain West Championship game inside War Memorial Stadium.

"The biggest thing that I learned is just, OK, I need to step back and say, 'All right, what's the direction of everything I want it to go, and how I want it to look? Let's get it going that way,'" Sawvel said.

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Just hours after the final whistle of the season, a last-second upset victory at Washington State thrusting the Cowboys into an early, unwanted offseason, Sawvel started calling players into his office and making the changes he talked about.

Kick returner TK King, the team's lone all-conference player, was soon after on the open market. So was defensive tackle Jaden Williams, edge rushers Braden Siders and Ethan Day, along with McNeely.

"We had a couple situations last year where it was multiplication by subtraction at the end of the year with people that I moved on," Sawvel said. "It wasn't addition, it was multiplication."

Unlike Bohl, Sawvel utilized the transfer portal, bringing in a host of unknowns. He said a conversation with Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham shaped his outlook on the offseason process: Get players, no matter the level, who live and breathe football and want to be Wyoming Cowboys.

Sawvel thinks he did just that, snagging motivated upperclassmen from programs like Oklahoma Baptist, Lindenwood and Riverside City College.

Nearly 50 new faces litter this new-look roster, including more than 20 who played at another school in 2024.

Sawvel also retooled his staff, relieving wide receivers coach Mike Grant and defensive tackles coach Jeff Phelps of their respective duties. Wyoming, again, featured one of the worst passing attacks in the nation, averaging just under 190 yards a game. That number is inflated thanks to Anderson's 342-yard day at New Mexico. The rush defense allowed nearly 200 yards an outing.

You don't have to dig too deep to see why that duo was replaced by Jovon Bouknight and Deonte Gibson, respectively.

Running backs coach Gordie Haug, with Sawvel's blessing, pursued a new opportunity closer to home at the University of North Dakota.

The days of year-long captains are over. That's another immediate change. Yes, four -- maybe less, maybe more -- will still walk to midfield for the coin toss. The title, though, belongs to no one.

Feelings get hurt and leaders stop leading, Sawvel added. That happened the last two seasons, he added.

"I've witnessed it," Sawvel said last February. "I sat there and watched it happen, you know, even a year ago. I'm like, wait a second, here. 'Well, I'm not a captain, I really can't.' Well, that's a bunch of crap. So, we're not going to do that."

Is that the right move?

"Absolutely," senior tight end John Michael Gyllenborg emphatically said. "After understanding why and seeing it play out over these last few months, it's absolutely something that I think is the right move for this team."

One thing that won't change is Sawvel's off-the-field approach. It's personal relationships that helped land the state's most-coveted recruit, quarterback Mason Drube. It also lured in Deion DeBlanc, one of the top prospects in the Greater Houston Area.

It also kept players in house.

Sawvel said he made an inventory last December of the Top-10 players he wanted to keep. Nine, he added, are still here. That includes the likes of Caden Barnett, Jaylen Sargent, Chris Durr Jr., Jack Walsh, Gyllenborg and others.

Why turn down the dollars and opportunity in free agency?

Legacy, for one. The relationship with the head coach is also near the top of that list.

"He's just so hands on," Walsh said. "He comes in the weight room and he'll get a crazy lift in that looks even crazier than ours. Between sets, he's coming up and talking to guys, saying, 'Hi, how are you doing?' That's him setting that standard. Like, you know, I'm expecting you guys to work hard. I'm going to work just as hard, too.

"... That kind of stuff is so motivating. And seeing that from your coach? I'm super pumped."

Sawvel believes in the culture. He believes in his staff. He believes in his players.

"We've got motivation to play every week," he added. "We have a lot to get right. Like, we gotta make this right from what happened last year.

"We'll play Wyoming football again, so that's all I care about."

- University of Wyoming’s Top 50 Football Players