Wyoming’s Jay Sawvel on QB Spot: ‘We’re Going to Play Both’
LARAMIE -- Jay Sawvel is going to his bullpen.
Well, sort of.
Wyoming's rookie head coach said Monday during his weekly press conference that both Evan Svoboda and Kaden Anderson will play Saturday night against Utah State, beginning in the first quarter.
Svoboda, he added, will likely get the start against the 1-6 Aggies.
"Kaden will come in very early in that game," Sawvel said. "Then, we're going to play both throughout the course of the game, unless there is one that is substantially providing a high level of execution to the offense. Then we'll keep riding that player."
Svoboda, a 6-foot-5, 245-pound junior, was tabbed the starter last December just days after Sawvel was named Craig Bohl's successor. He has been under center at the start of all seven games this fall.
It hasn't always been pretty.
The Mesa, Ariz., product was picked off on his first pass attempt of the season in a lopsided 48-7 loss at Arizona State. Linebacker Zyrus Fiaseu returned that gift 29 yards for a touchdown.
Svoboda has completed just 47.7% of his throws. That's 82-of-172. He tacked on six interceptions to go along with just 1,013 yards passing and four touchdowns. Statistically, he's the least efficient quarterback in the country.
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Wyoming is ranked 118th overall out of 133 FBS teams, accounting for just 172.6 yards through the air per outing.
Sawvel said, though he isn't a big fan of the two-quarterback system, he hasn't lost confidence in Svoboda.
"Like I talked to him about today, maybe in the situation that we're in, occasionally getting some plays to step back and re-center and refocus and re-go, that can help us," he said. "We have to get something to jump-start us."
Inconsistency at that key position is what led to this move.
Sawvel pointed to a drive in the third quarter in San Jose last Saturday where Svoboda connected on three-straight long throws, including an 18-yard scoring strike to Justin Stevenson.
The next possession, like seven others that afternoon, ended with a punt. So did the one after that.
A fourth-quarter red-zone interception on a badly overthrown screen pass eventually relegated Svoboda to the bench.
"When you're watching on video, and you're standing on the sideline, you're sitting there, and you're like, what just happened? Like, where has this been? Then we come out the next series and we go three-and-out," Sawvel said. "So, I thought he did some really good things the other day, but I thought there were a couple things that we didn't capitalize on that were available to us. We have to execute at a higher level."
Anderson has spelled Svoboda in five games this season, completing 13-of-23 balls for 195 yards and two touchdowns. The redshirt freshman found tight end John Michael Gyllenborg over the middle for a 63-yard touchdown in the dying seconds of that 24-14 loss to the Spartans. He was also picked off twice while playing the final 6:44 of the fourth quarter.
Anderson, a 6-foot-4, 221-pound Southlake, Texas native, watched from the sideline throughout the 2023 campaign as he recovered from a torn ACL, the second serious knee injury he sustained during his high school career.
Svoboda has been the more effective runner, finding the end zone five times this season. He has 192 rushing yards on 80 attempts.
How did he handle this demotion?
"He was OK with it," Sawvel said. "That's always the tougher news to take, but it wasn't like I told him he wasn't going to play or anything in that regard, because we still need him to play well. We need him to develop as a good quarterback in this program. We need him to develop, you know, all the way around, as a player. He understood. I mean, we finished up the conversation and we were all good after that.
"So, he's in it for the team. There's not an issue about that. I think he understood, you know, kind of the direction of what we needed to do a little bit."
The Cowboys will be facing a Utah State defense that is statistically the second-worst in the nation, allowing 502 yards per game. The Aggies' secondary gives up 262.2 of those through the air.
Sawvel said the goal is a simple one: Win. He wasn't thinking about the future when making this move.
"There's no stock down on anybody," he added. "We still have to get better. We have to get better with both of them. But both of them will play."
Kickoff is slated for 5 p.m. and the game will be televised on CBS Sports Network.
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