Wyoming Cowboys vs Weber State Wildcats Football Preview

No one’s going to pretend that the Wyoming Cowboys have any slight shot at the Mountain West Conference championship in 2011. However, the Pokes do have something of an opportunity to climb from the basement and reach the middle tier of the league.

Yes, Boise State and TCU are going to lord themselves over the rest of the reconfigured MWC in 2011, with San Diego State being the darkhorse. However, the departures of BYU and Utah from the conference, combined with the fact that Fresno State, Nevada, and Hawaii won’t join until next season, means that Wyoming could be able to make its presence felt. In week one, the Cowboys will begin the process of trying to develop to the point where they can make some noise in the Mountain West.

When you lose a lot of talent, the best assurance a coach can have is an experienced quarterback under center (or in the shotgun). That is what coach Dave Christensen at Wyoming had with Austyn Carta-Samuels—that is, until bowl season concluded, when the player known as A.C.S. announced his intent to transfer. With Carta-Samuels now landed at Vanderbilt, the job falls to true freshman Brett Smith, who seems to have beaten fellow true freshman Adam Pittser for the starting spot. Smith will aim to replicate the success Carta-Samuels had as a freshman when he led Wyoming to a bowl game. The Cowboys will try to improve upon their 3-9 performance in 2010.

Since leading receivers David Leonard and Zach Bolger have both graduated, Wyoming will depend on running back Alvester Alexander to stabilize the offense while Smith finds his footing. The Cowboys also hope sophomore receiver Robert Herron will be able to step up as a primary target this season.

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Wyoming endeavors to improve a bad defense and a worse offense against Weber State of the Big Sky. The Wildcats are attempting to move on after the close of the Cameron Higgins era. Higgins is a quarterback who, while throwing for over 12,000 yards in his career, could never quite live up to a sophomore season in which he accumulated 4,460 yards and scored 36 touchdowns. Higgins did not develop in his junior and senior seasons the way the Weber football community hoped he would.

Fellow Hawaiian Mike Hoke takes over for Higgins at quarterback this season. Hoke threw for 345 yards and two touchdowns in backup duty last year, so he’s not coming into the season with a complete lack of live gameday repetitions. That’s something which will play into Weber’s favor and make this game that much thornier for Wyoming. The Wildcats will be replacing both of leading rusher Bo Bolen and leading receiver Joe Collins, but they’ll have a trigger man who might be able to keep the Cowboys’ defense off balance. Wyoming’s offense is the unit that could find a reprieve against Weber State: The Wildcats had one of the worst defenses in the FCS last year, giving up 442 yards per game.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer