Wyoming
Wyoming heads west for test against San Jose State
WYOMING AT SAN JOSE STATE
Records: Wyoming (1-5, 1-1 in Mountain West play) and San Jose State (4-2, 2-1 in MWC play)
Location: San Jose, California (CEFCU Stadium)
Date/Time: Saturday, October 19th at 2:00 p.m. (Mountain Time)
Television: Mountain West Network
Streaming: Mountain West Network App
Radio: KOWB 1290 AM – 95.1 FM / KOWB App (Cowboy Sports Network)
Head-to-Head: Wyoming holds a 7-6 lead in the series. However, San Jose State has won five of the last six meetings between these two.
The Cowboys’ last win came in 2018.
Tale of the Tape
OFFENSE
QUARTERBACKS – Advantage to San Jose State
- Evan Svoboda had moments of good against San Diego State, but his passing efficiency was nowhere near where it needs to be if the Pokes want to pull off an upset Saturday afternoon.
12/31 and two interceptions.
Not good.
Halfway through 2024, I don’t expect to see Svoboda reinvent himself.
He can burn you with his legs if needed, but he is not going to consistently beat you through the air.
- Head coach Ken Niumatalolo and the Spartans are in a weird position.
QB Emmett Brown started the first four games for SJSU – nearly leading them to a shocking 4-0 start before Washington State outlasted the Spartans in double OT, 54-52.
However, in the last two weeks, Brown has been sputtering and backup Walker Eget was given the chance to spark SJSU’s offense.
Eget propelled them to a comeback win against Nevada.
Last week, neither Brown nor Eget found a way to push the Spartans past Colorado State.
There is uncertainty at the most important position in football, but both have shown the ability to lead San Jose State to wins.
RUNNING GAME – Advantage to San Jose State
- Injuries continue to pile up for UW, and the running back room is no exception.
Dawaiian McNeely and DJ Jones have suffered from the injury bug – leaving Sam Scott to do the heavy lifting.
Scott is finding his way as the season progresses, but without a complementary passing game, it is challenging to run the ball positively.
- Even though San Jose State likes to throw the ball around the yard, Chalk Floyd has done well for himself – punching the ball into the endzone seven times this year. He isn’t averaging an absurd amount of yards each game, but he is running for a shade under five yards each time he touches the rock.
When Floyd takes to the sideline, Jabari Bates steps in and has done a serviceable job thus far.
WIDE RECEIVERS/TIGHT ENDS – Advantage to San Jose State
- There is not a lot to write home about for the Pokes.
Not a single receiver has reached the 200-yard mark.
Tight end John Michael Gyllenborg is the glue that allows Svoboda to get the ball out early.
But he can’t do it alone.
Jaylen Sargent had a nice 70-yard snag against San Diego State.
Tyler King caught a pair of passes for 34 total yards,
That is it.
Freshman Chris Durr Jr. didn’t find his way into the box score despite a high ceiling that coaches and media have raved about.
You have got to give the kid more opportunities.
There is no reason not to.
Not in today’s world of NIL and the transfer portal.
Nick Nash.
One of the longest-tenured players in Mountain West history.
Nash has been at SJSU for six years – starting in 2019 as a QB.
Since he transitioned to wide receiver, he has been stellar, already eclipsing his 2023 totals for receiving yards, receptions, and receiving touchdowns in just six games.
Justin Lockhart serves as Nash’s “Robin” – collecting over 400 receiving yards in his own right.
And Treyshun Hurry has over 200 receiving yards.
This trio will be darn-near impossible to stop, but the goal for defensive coordinator Aaron Bohl must be to limit the damage.
OFFENSIVE LINE – Advantage to Wyoming
- How a given offensive line performs requires in-depth statistical tracking beyond how many sacks/tackles-for-loss a team allows.
That’s where Pro Football Focus (PFF) is such a helpful tool.
According to PFF, Wyoming holds a 67.0 pass-blocking grade and a 66.8 run-blocking grade.
8th and 6th in the Mountain West.
Pretty…pretty…pretty…bad.
Using the same PFF rankings, the Spartans have a 46.2 pass-blocking grade (only ahead of Air Force) and a 48.1 run-blocking grade (the worst in the conference).
11th and 12th in the MWC.
San Jose State can score with the best in the conference, but it’s because of their skill position players, not their offensive line.
DEFENSE
DEFENSIVE LINE – Advantage to Wyoming
- The defensive line for the Pokes is stingy and always full of grit and toughness.
Last week, DE Sabastian Harsh brought his lunch pail and went to work – finishing with four tackles-for-loss.
Running on Wyoming is never easy, and despite this being a down year, that still rings true.
PFF ranks the Cowboys as the second-best rushing defense in the Mountain West (82.1 grade – just behind Hawaii’s 83.4).
- The Spartans are generally on par with Wyoming regarding rushing yards allowed (166.2 yds for SJSU vs. 171.3 yds for WYO).
Senior Soane Toia is the stat leader on the defensive line – accounting for two tackles-for-loss and one sack.
Not much meat on the bone for the Spartans in the trenches.
LINEBACKERS – Advantage to San Jose State
- Wyoming’s linebackers showed some mustard last week as tandem Shae Suiaunoa and Connor Shay combined for 1.5 tackles-for-loss and one interception.
The next step for those two is to consistently churn out that type of production instead of it being a blip on the radar.
- Without question, the leader of the Spartan defense is LB Jordan Pollard.
He leads SJSU in total tackles with 60 so far.
Next on the list?
Robert Rahimi with 38 tackles.
Pollard has also registered two sacks and an interception.
Pairing up with Pollard is Jordan Cobbs.
He adds two sacks to the list and two interceptions.
Both of these guys make plays and can swing momentum heavily in their favor.
SECONDARY – Advantage to San Jose State
Wyoming recorded its second interception of the season in their loss to San Diego State.
The not-so-good?
It came via the linebackers.
You take interceptions any way you can, but in 2024, Wrook Brown is the only Cowboy in the secondary to convert an interception.
Last week, Wyoming allowed San Diego State to pass for over 250 yards.
On average, the Aztecs pass for 201 yards each outing.
Danny O’Neil was afforded time to be efficient in the pocket and finish the night with a 59.2% completion percentage.
If the secondary doesn’t shape up prior to kickoff, it will be a long day for Wyoming.
- San Jose State’s backline has been awfully good at forcing turnovers.
Out of their ten total interceptions as a team, six have come from the secondary.
Five of those six have come from a trio of starters – Robert Rahimi (2), DJ Harvey (2), and Michael Dansby (1).
Wyoming’s Svoboda threw two interceptions last Saturday.
Mistakes could let this game get out of hand quickly.
SPECIAL TEAMS
KICKERS – Advantage to Wyoming
- John Hoyland has been consistent.
From inside 50 yards, he is a perfect five for five.
Beyond 50, he has missed both of his attempts.
Last year, Hoyland had a knack for making some difficult attempts.
Not this year.
- San Jose State relies on Kyler Halvorsen for kicking duties.
In 2024, he is four of six, with his long being just 34 yards.
That’s why I don’t trust him to outduel Hoyland.
PUNTERS – Advantage to Wyoming
- After a terrific start to 2024, Jack Culbreath has settled into a rhythm – averaging a dependable 42 yards night in and night out.
- I don’t love the Spartans using two punters.
Trent Carrizosa is the “big leg” of the two, while Dino Beslagic is primarily used for short-field, accurate attempts.
Just like with any other position on the field, switching folks in and out doesn’t allow either player to develop a rhythm.
RETURNERS – Advantage to Wyoming
- Last week was an abysmal one for the Pokes’ return game.
They fielded zero yards the entire game.
Tyler King and his lone kickoff return touchdown is the only reason I give this advantage to Wyoming.
- San Jose State has done nothing in this department.
Zero TDs and a long of 37 by the unit as a whole.
No threat has been established.
Notable Injuries/Announcements
WR Malikhi Miller – QUESTIONABLE
LG Alex Conn – OUT
LB Connor Shay – DOUBTFUL
S Wyett Ekeler – QUESTIONABLE
S Isaac White – QUESTIONABLE
OL Wes King – QUESTIONABLE
OL Jack Walsh – QUESTIONABLE
DE Tyce Westland – QUESTIONABLE
DT Ben Florentine – QUESTIONABLE
Why San Jose State Will Win
The Spartans torch Wyoming’s pass defense.
Wyoming won’t be able to keep up in a shootout.
The Cowboys have broken the 20-point barrier twice this season.
San Jose State has scored less than 20 points just once.
Whether it’s Emmett Brown or Walker Eget, SJSU staying with one QB throughout the game would prove dividends.
Throw in a few forced turnovers by way of WYO’s Evan Svoboda and the Spartans could wrap this puppy up early.
Why Wyoming Will Win
They control the clock and establish a reliable ground attack.
SJSU’s defense is quite good in the air…so limiting the chances for the Spartans to create a takeaway is critical.
Let RB Sam Scott try to win this game for you.
The trenches are where the Pokes can create an advantage.
On defense, the best thing you can do is force SJSU to make small gains and drive down the field.
Explosive plays will kill the Cowboys.
3 Players to Watch
Each week, I will highlight three players who may not be household names but could be the difference-makers in this matchup.
Sam Scott (Running Back – Wyoming)
- Listed down the depth chart to begin 2024, Scott has taken grabbed the opportunity given to him via injuries
Floyd Chalk (Running Back – San Jose State)
- Assuming that Wyoming attempts to key in on SJSU’s passing game, Chalk has a chance to churn out a big day on the ground.
Michael Dansby (Cornerback – San Jose State)
- He may not lead the team in interceptions, but he creates plenty of opportunities.
Dansby leads the Spartans with six pass breakups, double the amount anyone else has on the San Jose State roster.
Spread: Wyoming +11.5, San Jose State -11.5 (-110 to WYO and SJSU)
Total: 52.5 points (-112 to the over and -108 to the under)
Straight Up Money Line: Wyoming +330, San Jose State -425
Prediction
This is a bad schematic matchup for the Wyoming Cowboys.
Playing a pass-heavy team with talented personnel on the perimeter is not what the Pokes look forward to when scouting opponents.
I don’t see Wyoming compiling enough stops and scoring enough to pull off a Mountain West upset.
San Jose State wins and covers.
SAN JOSE STATE SPARTANS 35 – WYOMING COWBOYS 17
In the comments, let us know your predictions for Saturday’s game between the Cowboys and Spartans!
The federal government owns nearly half the land in Wyoming. That gives Wyomingites easy access to national forest and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, but it also means they miss out on the property taxes that would be paid by private landowners.
The federal Secure Rural Schools (SRS) program aims to rectify that.
Under the program, the U.S. Forest Service will be giving Wyoming $4.5 million this year to support rural schools and roads. That’s the state’s cut of this year’s $248 million total payout.
Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman touted the program on the House floor in December.
“With such a large percentage of Wyoming’s resources historically locked up in federal lands, including national forests, communities across my state have long weathered challenges associated with reduced flexibility and a decreased tax base,” she said. “Since [the program’s] creation, Wyoming communities have received vital funding to support infrastructure projects, public education, search and rescue operations and other critical emergency services.”
The program has been repeatedly reauthorized for decades with only a few lapses. A bill resuming the payments after its most recent lapse in 2024 advanced through Congress and was signed by Pres. Trump in December.
In April, the U.S. Forest Service announced that this year’s payout, which is determined by a complex calculation, would be $248 million across the country.
“Secure Rural Schools payments reflect our strong partnership with the counties and communities that surround national forests,” Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said in a news release. “These funds support critical infrastructure, while advancing active forest management and restoration that keep forests resilient and communities safer. We remain committed to deliver this support directly to rural communities that depend on these resources.”
The payments will be distributed to 19 of Wyoming’s 23 counties in roughly the following amounts:
- Albany: $328,000
- Big Horn: $320,000
- Carbon: $331,000
- Converse: $19,000
- Crook: $136,000
- Fremont: $715,000
- Hot Springs: $31,000
- Johnson: $179,000
- Lincoln: $370,000
- Natrona: $3,000
- Park: $664,000
- Platte: $1,000
- Sheridan: $166,000
- Sublette: $571,000
- Sweetwater: $69,000
- Teton: $550,000
- Uinta: $46,000
- Washakie: $29,000
- Weston: $5,000
The payments to Converse, Crook, Teton, and Weston Counties do not technically stem from the Secure Rural Schools program, though they are included in the forest service’s $248 million total and Wyoming’s $4.5 million.
For these four Wyoming counties, the payments are authorized by an older program, a 1908 act of Congress that gives counties 25% of the revenue generated on federal lands within their boundaries. Individual counties may choose to receive this revenue share instead of the SRS payment, and often do when the share is higher than their SRS payment would be.
For most counties in Wyoming, the SRS payment is more generous.
From timber sales to federal compensation
Legislation passed more than a century ago saw the federal government pay states some of the revenue it generated from logging activities in national forests. That was great for counties with federal forests in their backyards, but less so for counties with other less monetizable federal lands.
In 1976, the federal government started making Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) to these counties to address this disparity. A 2025 congressional overview of that program states:
“PILT was enacted in response to a shift in federal policy from one that prioritized disposal of federal lands — in which federal ownership was considered to be temporary — to one that prioritized retention of federal lands, in perpetuity, for public benefit … Along with this shift came the understanding that, because these lands were exempt from state and local taxation and were no longer likely to return to the tax base in the foreseeable future, some compensation should be provided to the impacted local governments.”
Logging revenue declined in the 1990s, so Congress stepped in with the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000. It provided for six years of payments to the counties that had historically shared in the federal government’s logging revenue.
“It was intended to be temporary,” said Mark Haggerty, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “The payments actually declined over those six years, and then they sunset. And the idea was that those counties would transition [so] they’re not going to be reliant on timber anymore. But they’ll become a recreation county, or they’ll become a remote work county, or they’ll be a retirement [county], like they’ll find another way to pay for their budgets.”
But “a lot of these rural counties have not transitioned,” Haggerty said. So the temporary program has become a semi-permanent one, with repeated reauthorizations throughout the years, often driven by the states with the most to lose if the funding went away completely.
“Wyoming is a classic case,” Haggerty said. “Wyoming pays for things with oil and gas money. It’s hard to develop a diversified tax structure around recreation in Wyoming, because you don’t have the taxes to pay for it, right? You don’t have an income tax. You have low sales taxes because you pay for things other ways.”
As the program has been renewed, its formula has been tweaked. Its overall payouts have fallen from a peak of more than $500 million when it was first reauthorized in 2008.
But some of the formula changes have benefited certain counties more than others. Now, in addition to a county’s historic timber sales, the SRS payout also takes into consideration federal land acreage and relative income levels.
“For some poor counties that have a lot of federal land but didn’t used to get a lot of timber receipts, all of a sudden their payments went up through the roof because those other formula factors really benefited them,” Haggerty said.
In Wyoming, that included Park County, which never saw Oregon-levels of logging but does have a lot of federal land.
Center for American Progress
Those same formula factors disadvantaged richer communities like Teton County, which left the program in 2008 when those changes took effect.
Center for American Progress
Today, all of these forces, as well as recent moves by the Trump administration, might be driving a wedge into the coalition of states that historically backed the SRS program.
A bipartisan coalition fractures
In the summer of 2025, SRS funding was removed from the One Big Beautiful Bill before the legislation’s passage. The Center for American Progress published an interactive map showing how the end of that funding would affect rural counties.
Each county has the option of receiving its SRS payment or taking its share of logging or other federal land revenues under the program that’s been going since 1908. When Teton County left the SRS program in 2008, it reverted to accepting revenue shares.
For many years, especially in the early years of the SRS program, it made more sense for counties to take SRS payments instead of the 1908 shares. That meant the SRS program usually had just enough support to be reauthorized. Haggerty said support came from Congress members of both parties, but only from those representing the states that benefited.
“It’s just really difficult politically,” he said. “It’s not a partisan issue, because both Republicans and Democrats in the states that get it support it. It’s a geographic problem. They just don’t have enough places that need it.”
Today, with SRS payments falling and a presidential administration pushing for more logging on national forests, Haggerty said some counties that once benefited from the SRS payments are eying a return to revenue-sharing.
“Either they think they can get more out of revenue-sharing than what a Secure Rural Schools payment might be, or they think by tying their budgets to activities on public lands, they can force the politics to open the public lands up again to more extraction,” Haggerty said. “That’s fragmented the coalition that already wasn’t big enough to consistently get it authorized. And so the future of Secure Rural Schools, I think, is probably less secure now than it has been in the past.”
The payments lapsed in 2016, and again in 2024, when Congress did not reauthorize them. The latest reauthorization also includes retroactive payments for 2024.
The Wyoming Republican Party can’t use its autonomy rights as a defense when sued if it “sat on” those rights for 40 years, an attorney suing the party argues.
A group of Hot Springs County Republican Party leaders sued the Wyoming Republican Party, its Dispute Resolution Committee and a few of its officials last year, alleging that the party violated state law by giving voting power to outgoing officials who weren’t precinct delegates chosen by a vote of the people.
While this case has been unfolding, the Wyoming Republican Party announced that it’s going to quit following the state laws that pertain to it in light of a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case, Eu v San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee, affirming parties’ rights to dictate their own fate as private groups.
“We are reasserting, not asking for our rights,” Wyoming GOP Chair Bryan Miller said at the state party’s April 23-25 convention. “Wyoming will have to fight this if they want to fight this.”
Miller also said that, “the party’s rights have been violated for nearly four decades.”
Why Didn’t They Say So Before
The state GOP cited that same case and filed that same defense in the Hot Springs County case.
The plaintiffs’ new attorney Kate Mead, who replaced the original attorney Clark Stith as the latter is now a judge, told a court Friday that this logic doesn’t work.
That’s because of a legal concept called “laches.”
It means that when someone takes “unreasonable delay” in asserting his rights, and others suffer for that delay, the court will deny relief to the person who caused that delay, according to Black’s Law Dictionary.
Mead pointed to Miller’s comments to the convention’s bylaws committee.
“The chairman of the WRP’s statements … were the first that plaintiffs learned that the WRP had sat on its constitutional rights argument for nearly 40 years,” wrote Mead in her argument. “Why hasn’t the WRP sought review of Wyoming election law prior to this case?”
Mead noted that the Wyoming Supreme Court told a subgroup of the GOP, the Uinta County Republican Party, how to notify the Wyoming attorney general when launching a constitutional challenge during its 2023 case on these same arguments about autonomy.
“WRP’s delay of nearly 40 years, according to their own chairman, is undeniably inexcusable as a matter of equity,” wrote Mead. “WRP failed to file a direct constitutional challenge against the state, instead causing the plaintiffs here untold disadvantage, injury, time and money.”
Mead noted that the 2023 Uinta County case stemmed from the same basic dispute about which party leaders can vote, and whether the party can rely on its own bylaws rather than state law for that decision.
“And, as expected, here we are again,” she said, chalking the recurring dispute up to a lack of clarity and the party’s delay in vindicating its rights in court.
She’s asking the case judge, Uinta County District Court Judge James Kaste, to let her add her argument into this case.
Kaste is also expected to make a decision in the coming days on whether to dismiss the case or keep it alive for trial, a phase called “summary judgment.”
But That’s New
That’s not the whole story, Miller told Cowboy State Daily in a Wednesday phone interview.
The party has long had clashes over its rights and the restrictions state law places on it, but he didn’t know about the Eu case until Jan. 17 of this year when the party’s attorney, Caleb Wilkins, unearthed it for him, Miller said.
Before that point, the existence of that case was a theme of “scuttlebutt,” Miller said.
“I had heard there was a case out there. I’ve since found out that they tried to bring it up in the Uinta County case,” he said.
But Frank Eathorne was the state GOP chairman at that time, and Uinta County waged that case apart from the state party besides, said Miller.
He said the Eu case probably would have changed the outcome for Uinta County GOP, but the Wyoming Supreme Court wouldn’t hear that argument.
That’s because no one notified the state attorney general that the state’s laws were under attack as unconstitutional, as the law requires, court documents say.
“I’d been bugging our attorney, you know, for a couple months, December timeframe,” said Miller “Then January he goes, ‘I found the case you’re talking about.’”
Miller told bylaws committee members on April 23 that the party intends to challenge Wyoming in federal court to vindicate its rights.
He told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday it’s getting close to filing.
Meanwhile, The AG
Wyoming Attorney General Deputy Megan Pope is defending Wyoming’s laws in this case and asserts they’re constitutional.
While Pope has acknowledged the power of Eu, she’s also pointed to later cases setting up a tiered test by which a state may survive a party’s claims of autonomy by showing that its laws only burden the party minimally.
On Friday, Pope added another argument: the state Republican Party is not wholly private. It manages public functions.
Wyoming law tells major parties that their county central committees must comprise people elected at the primary election from within their respective neighborhoods.
It tells them to help fill vacancies when partisan elected officials leave office mid-term, as the party matching the incumbent’s affiliation chooses three nominees to replace him.
And state law tells the major parties they can’t financially back one candidate over another in the primary election. That’s generally read to mean the parties can’t endorse candidates in the primary election.
Party leaders at the convention April 25 said the party wants to endorse candidates, impose loyalty tests and assert its autonomy in other ways.
“These statutes do not intrude on private associational rights,” wrote Pope in her new Friday argument. “Instead, they regulate the composition of party committees that perform public functions.”
She pointed to cases addressing that quasi-public category.
“The First Amendment protects a party’s right to organize itself and conduct its own affairs,” wrote Pope, with a reference to the Eu case, “But when a party exercises powers ‘traditionally exclusively reserved to the State,’ it is treated as a state actor and its actions become subject to constitutional constrain under the public function doctrine.”
The quote within Pope’s quote there is from the 1974 U.S. Supreme Court case of Jackson v. Metro Edison Co. — addressing the public functions of public utilities.
This case is ongoing, and Kaste has not yet ruled whether to dismiss it as too legally settled for trial or let it go to a jury.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
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