As the kick off to start the second half between the Cowboys and the BYU Cougars sliced through the crisp night air at War Memorial Stadium, an air of confidence still lingered throughout a nearly sold out crowd in Laramie. Just moments prior to the half splitting in the Cowboys’ first home game against the Cougars since 2009, starting quarterback Evan Svoboda orchestrated his best drive to date in a brown and gold uniform, taking the Cowboys 75 yards down the field while firing 5/7 to five different receivers on the drive, allowing the Cowboys to enter the break down 17-7.
That air of confidence that drive brought along was quickly squelched when Cougar wide receiver Keelan Marion blew past every Cowboy defender on his way to a 100 yard kick-off return in the opening seconds of the second half.
Talk about a momentum killer.
“To give up a kickoff return for a touchdown first play of the third quarter, that’s a gut punch,” head coach Jay Sawvel said postgame.
“We can’t afford a special teams breakdown of that magnitude.”
Another momentum killer in this one? Wrook Brown being disqualified from the game in the third quarter after a questionable targeting call, one that Sawvel certainly didn’t agree with. Brown had his fingerprints all over this game defensively, and that call also came after the starting nickelback snagged the first interception of the season for the Cowboys in the first half.
“I’m going to make a phone call on that one, you know, because I want that one explained to me,” Sawvel said of the call against Brown.
Any way you put it, the Cowboys, in every sense of the word, were always going to be big time underdogs coming into this one. Even despite being pinned as just 9.5 point underdogs, neither the metrics or the Pokes’ previous results backed the Cowboys in this long running rivalry matchup against the Cougars, one the Cowboys haven’t won since 2003 by a score of 13-10 in War Memorial Stadium.
And that winless drought against the Cougars will continue, as a Sawvel led Cowboy squad still seeks the head coach’s elusive first win.
A lot went wrong for the Cowboys in this one, as has been the theme across their three game skid to open the season, especially on the offensive side of the ball.
The Pokes, through their first two games, came into the matchup averaging a measly 10 points and 194 yards of offense. The Cougars offense had a much more explosive start to the season, averaging 29.5 points and 431.5 yards of offense through their first two games.
And, much as the trends of the last two games for both teams would have it, those numbers would have a lot of truth behind them.
The Cowboys would just barely meet their quota, battling for 217 yards of total offense. The Cowboys struggled to establish any kind of offensive identity in this one, as they averaged only 2.3 yards per carry on the ground and Svoboda only had a 44% completion rate through the air, throwing for 140 yards with no touchdowns and an interception.
All the while, the Cougars had 458 yards of total offense and scored 34 points.
“It was hard to run the ball on them because of, kind of the structure of their bodies inside, you know, and so that’s going to be a hard team to run the ball on consistently,” Sawvel added of the run game.
Despite Svoboda’s struggles at the helm of the offense, Sawvel will be sticking with him to run the show. His teammates are confident in his abilities as well, as they’ve seen Svoboda’s tireless work ethic to improve and the potential he has behind center.
“We have full faith in him, that’s for sure,” offensive guard Jack Walsh said.
“I have full confidence in Evan, and I know that he will do whatever he needs to do [to improve],” Will Pelissier, senior wide receiver, added.
Despite the kickoff return making the game 24-7 early in the third quarter, Svoboda and his offense still had the tools, and time, to make a comeback happen. In the third quarter, however, Svoboda and his offensive crew would only muster 29 yards worth of offense. It also doesn’t help that the Cowboys gave up 17 points defensively in the half either.
“Defensively, I thought there was too many breakdowns in just tackling,” Sawvel said. “…we’re not getting into thighs, we’re getting into ankles. We got to take the extra step. We got to get up on people and we gotta do that.”
Not all was lost on this Cowboy squad against the Cougars, though, as there were some positives.
The Cowboys were able to clean up their game in this one, at least penalty wise. The Cowboys only marked four total penalties in the game, including the questionable targeting call against Brown. The Cowboys previously averaged eight penalties a game through their first two contests.
“I thought that’s better, you know, I think everybody’s mindful of the execution to it and what we’ve got to do,” Sawvel said.
The Cowboys also got their first takeaway of the season, courtesy of Brown as mentioned. That’s a trend the Cowboys will hope to continue defensively as the weeks progress.
Still, where do the Cowboys go from here? While much of the team is still confident in one another and there is still belief in the potential and talent of this team, we just haven’t seen that potential live up to expectations yet.
“I feel like we just need to find out rhythm, because I know, just the talent that we have in the receiver room, tight end room, quarterback room, I have no doubt that there’s [not] a lack of talent there,” Pelissier said.
The Cowboys will have one last shot at a non-conference win when they head up to Denton, Texas to take on the North Texas Mean Green. That club was recently blown out by in-state rival Texas Tech by a score of 66-21.
There, the Cowboys will have as good of an opportunity as they’ve yet had to earn Sawvel’s first win as the head coach of Cowboy football.
