After going perfect at home, Cowboys close regular season at Nevada with hopes of first road win

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) – In Week 12, the Wyoming football team capped off an impressive home campaign with a 42-9 victory over the Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors. The Pokes put together one of the most complete games they’ve played all season to go a perfect 7-0 at War Memorial Stadium in 2023.

“The offensive line protected particularly well. Really well, and I thought we were pretty balanced as far as our ability to run and throw it. So a big, big win for us. Defensively, we certainly did some good things. You know I thought we had to neutralize a couple of their players… I think we did that,” head coach Craog Bohl said. “[We] played clean football, zero penalties, won the turnover margin. So a big, big win for us, and obviously I want to say thanks to our fans. They have been great.”

“It’s great. The Wyoming fans, they just bring a different energy for us. When you see them all at home they just bring a different energy, I don’t know [how to explain],” junior cornerback Tyrecus Davis added.

As successful as the team has been in Laramie, they’ve equally struggled away from it. The final game of the regular season pits the Cowboys against Nevada in Reno; the players are well aware of their shortcomings on the road, and are hungry to change it.

“To be undefeated at home is something that nobody can take away from us ever. You know we can hang our hat on that, but on the flipside of that we’re also ‘defeated’ on the road. So you look back at some things, and maybe wish we could be as consistent as we are at home as we are on the road. We have one more opportunity to prove that. So we’re trying to break this defeated streak on the road, go 1-0, and beat the Wolfpack,” graduate offensive tackle Frank Crum said.

Nevada is a team that’s had a hard time this season sitting at 2-9, but historically they’ve played Wyoming tough. The Pokes know they will be in for a battle, and have adopted the mentality that it doesn’t matter where the game is played– they’re going to play freely without feeling any sort of burden.

“Yeah I mean we’ve just kind of gotta treat it as a home game. We say that every week. We’ve gotta start fast, most of our road games this year we haven’t done that. So I think that’s going to be a big emphasis, and you start fast in practice too,” junior linebacker Easton Gibbs said. “So being a leader out there, kind of going, trying to do that. Set the pace at practice myself.”

“At one point in the season it was ‘we’ve really struggled on the road, let’s get a win.’ I think that puts too much pressure [on us], so I think this week it’ll be just keep riding high. You know, just do our thing on the road no matter where we are. We’ve just gotta create our own energy,” sophomore tight end John Michael Gyllenborg said.

The game against the Wolfpack will kick off at 7 p.m. on Saturday.

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