Wyoming Cowboys vs Texas Longhorns Football Preview

For the entire offseason, the Wyoming Cowboys wanted to get at the University of Texas after pushing and testing the Longhorns for a full half last year in Laramie. Now, all the Wyoming kids will want is a pleasant three-and-a-half-hour distraction from a supremely devastating event.

Football just won’t mean that much this Saturday as head coach Dave Christensen brings his University of Wyoming squad to Austin to take on the No. 5 Longhorns in the back end of a home-and-home series. The course of human events has taken the focus away from the gridiron, putting a kid’s game into a very small place.

Wyoming freshman linebacker Ruben Narcisse, 19, of Miami, died in a car wreck Monday after he and several other UW teammates visited friends in Fort Collins, Colo., over the weekend.
One player remained hospitalized Tuesday, according to the Associated Press, while two others were treated and released. Christensen said wide receiver Christian Morgan, 18, of Aurora, Colo., had surgery on his elbow and may be released Wednesday.

The Colorado Highway Patrol said that the wreck took place at roughly 5:30 a.m. on Monday when the players' pickup drifted off U.S. 287, just south of the Wyoming state line.
Narcisse was a passenger in the back seat of a vehicle driven by Wyoming freshman cornerback Trey Fox, 19, of Glenwood Springs, Colo., according to the patrol. Another passenger was redshirt freshman linebacker J.J. Quinlan, 19, of Everett, Wash.

Police said it appeared Fox fell asleep and that alcohol and drugs weren't believed to be factors in the accident. The highway on which the accident occurred was the same road where eight UW track and cross country athletes died in a collision with a pickup driven by a drunken driver on Sept. 16, 2001.

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None of the four men played in Wyoming's 28-20 win over Southern Utah on Saturday. Christensen, though, said the team plans to wear a helmet decal with Narcisse's initials, and one member of the team will wear Narcisse's No. 12 jersey each game the rest of the season.

That kind of an event – a stomach punch far greater than Wyoming’s inability to hang with Texas in the second half of last year’s game – has popped the Cowboys’ balloon. It was only 12 months ago that Wyoming led Texas through the first 25 minutes and trailed by a tiny 13-10 margin at halftime on home soil. The Cowboys had a puncher’s chance to create one of the most massive upsets in college football history, but when Texas found its footing and scored 21 third-quarter points, that upset bid was denied. Wyoming looked forward to getting another shot at the Horns, but now, Ruben Narcisse’s tragic death has cast a pall over the proceedings.

Just playing a game is the only relief Wyoming will have. Everything before and after the event will ring very hollow. Such is life… and the experience of an untimely death in the family.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer