For the first time in three years, the Wyoming Cowboys will not be going bowling. For a lot of teams, it may be hard to find the motivation to play when the rest of your regular season feels like it will amount to nothing. However, that won’t be the case for the Cowboys and the remainder of their season.
“You play for the state, you play for your teammates, you play for your family, you play for God. That doesn’t change. There’s so many things to play for all the time. You can make up something in your head and it can just be your motivational factor,” running back Sam Scott said after the Cowboys suffered their seventh loss of the season to Utah State.
The Cowboys still believe in turning this season around and have a lot to play for in their remaining four games on the schedule, including playing spoiler on the road to a vastly improved New Mexico Lobos team.
Get to know New Mexico
The Lobos are in their first season under head coach Bronco Mendenhall, who has completely turned around the Lobos’ season after they began the year 0-4. The Lobos now currently sit at a 3-5 record after dropping their last outing against Colorado State in their lowest scoring bout this season.
The Lobos, similarly to Utah State, is an extremely offensive minded team that has played in a lot of high scoring contests this season. The Lobos have individually scored 50 or more points in three out their last four games. However, the Lobos rank one spot ahead of Utah State in total defense, ranking 130 of 133 FBS teams nationally.
“They’re extremely explosive offensively, averaging 468 yards a game,” head coach Jay Sawvel said of the Lobos.
The Lobos’ offensive output is headlined by dual-threat quarterback Devon Dampier, who has been explosive with both his arm and with his legs. The sophomore field general has thrown for 2,079 yards and nine touchdowns, while rushing for 538 yards and 10 touchdowns. Dampier has been careless with the ball, though, throwing for 11 interceptions this season.
“[He’s] really versatile. Throws it well, runs all over the place with the ball too, so that’s a unique challenge,” Sawvel said of Dampier.
While the Lobos’ top receiving threat, Luke Wysong, will likely be out with an injury for the contest, the Lobos still have a number of dangerous receiving threats including the likes of wideout Ryan Davis, who has 513 yards on 35 catches.
Harrison Waylee to make 2024 debut against the Lobos
Talented senior running back Harrison Waylee will be making his first appearance of the 2024 season against the Lobos after missing a majority of the season with a knee injury. While the speedy back was originally targeting the Cowboys’ previous outing against Utah State as his return date, Sawvel noted that Waylee was assessed and determined to not be 100% ready by the original planned date.
“Harrison could have played last week, based off the eye test. He looked good. We measure all these different layers…and I get all this data, and had a meeting with our head strength coach and our head trainer about any imbalances with his good leg and not in the knee that he injured,” Sawvel said.
“I pulled our head strength coach aside and I said, ‘tell me your honest opinion.’ He’s like, ‘I wouldn’t sign off on him playing this week.’ I just didn’t think it was in the best interest of Harrison [to play against Utah State].”
With only four games remaining and no possibility of the Cowboys making a bowl game this season, Waylee will be able to play the remainder of the Pokes’ schedule while maintaining his redshirt status this season, as players can only play a max of four regular season games in order to maintain their redshirt status.
Waylee will be lining up in the backfield next to redshirt freshman quarterback Kaden Anderson, who Sawvel announced will be starting against the Lobos after splitting minutes with original starting quarterback Evan Svoboda against Utah State.
Cowboys have been much more effective in the third quarter in conference play
At the beginning of the season, Sawvel noted that his squad was struggling to build any momentum out of halftime, as the Cowboys often found themselves buried in too deep of a hole to come back from after the third quarter of play.During the Cowboys’ opening four game skid, they were out paced in the third quarter by a combined score of 58-0.
Since that point, the Cowboys’ have been playing extremely well in the third quarter, as their following four game sequence of late has led them to outscore their opponents 30-3.
“We’ve had some good third quarters lately, defensively,” Sawvel said. “Part of it is the fact that we’re also controlling the ball more in the third quarter.”
Still, it just hasn’t been enough for the Cowboys to find more than one win so far this season. The Cowboys will hope that another solid third quarter effort against the Lobos will lead to a win this time around.
