A Look at Wyoming

Offense: they experienced some growing pains last season as a bunch of new personnel grew into their new system.  Now, it's year two.  They return 7 starters from a 7-6, bowl-winning team, including Austyn Carta-Samuels at QB.  Hopefully, he'll improve on his fairly poor 54% completion percentage.  He's certainly exciting to watch as a runner, but their WRs David Leonard and Zach Bolger need to be getting the ball in space.  Leonard is the headliner at WR.  RB Alvester Alexander had a great bowl game against Fresno State, but didn't really do too much in any other game.  He's a shorter, shiftier kind of back that they should try to get outside more.  They tried to hammer him up the middle as a freshman and he clearly didn't do too great of a job.

Defense: it's amazing they won 7 games with as poor as their D was (the same could be said for their offense).  The switch to the 3-4 should help.  If nothing else, it makes the DL look deeper.  They typically recruit better LBs anyway, so I think this suits them better.  Look for them to improve on fairly abysmal numbers across the board from last season.  In their defense, they did play the toughest schedule in the country last season with some of the great offenses in the country playing opposite this D (Texas, TCU, BYU, and Fresno State were all top 15 offenses).  However, it won't be any easier this season with the schedule we'll highlight later.  Their secondary has the playmakers to change games, with the speedy Gipson brothers starting at the corners and senior Chris Prosinski at free safety.  Shamiel Gary brings the wood at SS, but he needs to be make plays closer to the line of scrimmage!  Those guys make a lot of great plays, but they have to tighten it up on the consistency front.

Schedule: as I mentioned, the schedule isn't any easier this year.  They play I-AA Southern Utah, at Texas, Boise State, and at Toledo.  They should beat Southern Utah and could beat Toledo.  They'll drop the other two, but there is no shame in that: I fully anticipate Texas and Boise State to finish in the top 10, perhaps even the top 5.  So 2-2 or 1-3 in the non-conference.

Conference home games are Air Force, Utah, San Diego State, and Colorado State.  I believe they could win any of these games, but they will probably strike out against Air Force and Utah.  If they are 2-6 entering the SDSU game (which is fairly likely actually), it'd be tough to imagine them having the confidence to pull that one off.  They do have the altitude advantage there though.  Let's call this 2-2 or 1-3 as well.

Conference road games are TCU, BYU, New Mexico, and UNLV.  TCU and BYU are losses.  I just think it's tough regrouping with such a poor record late in the season for those games at New Mexico and UNLV.  Again, they could be 2-2, but it's probably more likely to see them 1-3.

Outlook: they found ways to win games last season, which I still find baffling, even after watching 3 or 4 of the wins.  They got blown out 6 times, and won 6 tight games, with one blowout win against 1-11 New Mexico.  If they can stay close, they can find enough ways to win.  But I think they will take one step backwards this year, and probably sit around 4-8.  They return the core of the 2010 team in 2011, with the main question being at WR.  Just wait, Wyoming, your time is coming.  2011 should be a promising year.