The Cowboys have one last chance to grab a non-conference win this upcoming weekend with a road trip to play the North Texas Mean Green, and they aren’t poised to let it slip away.
Despite the struggles early on in this season, this Cowboy team is still sticking together and knows they can still turn this season around and the Cowboys entering conference play 1-3 rather than 0-4 would be a huge boost.
“It’s frustrating, I don’t like being in the situation that we’re in right now. Nobody wanted to be 0-3 at this point,” head coach Jay Sawvel said.
“This is a huge game for us, and everybody in the organization knows that.”
Get to know North Texas
The Mean Green are off to a 2-1 start to the season, but took a beating in their last outing against Texas Tech where they lost by a score of 66-21.
Chandler Morris leads the Mean Green in the backfield, as he’s had a productive start to the season, particularly throwing the ball. He’s already amassed 899 yards through the air, throwing for nine touchdowns as well. Morris has been a bit careless with the ball, though, throwing for six interceptions so far this season. The Cowboys will look to take advantage of that, especially after nickel Wrook Brown caught the first interception of the season for the Cowboys last game.
Damashja Harris joins Morris in the backfield and has been equally as productive, but has only had 23 carries through their first three games. He’s currently averaging 8.4 yards per carry and has already ripped off an 80 yard run this season.
“They’ve got good players, offensively, they play with a lot of tempo, a lot of pace. They can create explosive plays,” Sawvel said of the Mean Green offense.
The Mean Green, in contrast to their heavy hitting offensive prowess, have been poor defensively so far this season. They currently rank as one of the bottom 10 teams in the nation in total defense, giving up 472 yards per game while also giving up 16 total touchdowns so far this season.
If there were ever an opponent for the Cowboy offense to finally get going against, this would be the one.
“Their defense versus our offense is going to be a big telling thing in the game this coming Saturday,” Sawvel said. “…we need to be able to establish some things, and we need to be able to create some things and we’re going to have to score points.”
Why haven’t the Cowboys generated more success in the run game?
For much of Craigh Bohl’s ten year tenure at the helm of Cowboy football, the Cowboys were thought of as a run first team, the type of team that will wear you down with hard-nosed running straight up the gut.
Yet, we haven’t seen much of that hard-nosed run game find any traction so far this season.
“Getting a run game established at the University of Wyoming is a critical, critical thing, and right now we’ve not done that to the level of what we need to,” Sawvel said.
There are many different factors that have played into the Cowboys’ ground woes so far this season. For one, Sawvel noted that replacing the big shoes of Frank Crum has come with some difficulties. Nate Geiger, a redshirt freshman, was meant to start in his place and did for a few snaps against Arizona State until he went down with an injury. Fellow redshirt freshman Jake Davies has since taken his place, and Sawvel has noted that there has been some growing pains with the inexperience at that spot.
Sawvel also noted that all the backs haven’t necessarily been following the lead of the offensive linemen, which have resulted in some blown up plays.
“We got to trust the track,” Sawvel said. “…we get in and all of a sudden want to bounce something, or lose faith in the block.”
While there are also a plethora of different reasons as to why the Cowboys have struggled to pass the ball as well, the struggles to run the ball is only piling onto the Cowboys’ lackluster air attack. If the Cowboys can establish themselves on the ground, then they might just be able to start getting things going with their passing game as well.
“It’s all tied together,” Sawvel said of his running and passing games. “We’re not a team that’s going to function real well on third and 11 right now.”
How big of a part will the Cowboy defense play in this one?
The Mean Green have relied a lot on their offense to carry them through their first three games, and much of that has been through the air. Sawvel noted that in their last outing against BYU, his secondary, particularly his corners, struggled to keep BYU’s air attack contained. That group will have to be assertive and not reactionary if they want to keep the Mean Green offense on lock.
“We gotta have some development at corner right now, and that’s a concern, because it’s one of those things that I thought the eye discipline wasn’t where it needed to be,” Sawvel said after the loss to BYU.
Sawvel said his defense sticking to their assignments and not overcomplicating things will be a main point of focus in practice this week, and something they’ll have to do in order to perform well against the Mean Green.
“I do think that at times, we’ve got people trying to do more than what you need to,” Sawvel said.
Could this win give the Cowboys momentum into conference play?
The Cowboys not only need this win to help mend their record, but it would also serve as huge boost in confidence for a group that will be hosting a front range conference rival in Air Force next week.
“We gotta create our own momentum, you know? And in order to do that, we’ve gotta keep preparing for it, and then we gotta make the plays when they’re available to us,” Sawvel said.
After all, the Pokes may need only one win to spark this team and turn this season around
