Just a few months removed from a lackluster 3-9 finish to the season, Cowboy football head coach Jay Sawvel and his newly refurbished staff have been “busy” in the offseason, retooling the Cowboys’ roster in hopes of a quick turnaround from last year.
While the Cowboys return a lot of young talent on the offensive side of the ball, they have had to replace a lot of experience and talent on their senior-laden defense. Sawvel and company have done that by dipping into all levels of collegiate play via the transfer portal and through high school recruiting.
Overall, the Cowboys signed 40 new players to their roster so far. As mentioned, Sawvel used most of his attention overhauling his defense–signing 21 defensive recruits–looking for more depth as the Cowboys struggled defensively last season after his multiple starters were ravaged with a variety of different injuries.
“There’s some things I looked at from a depth, competition [and] maturity standpoint within the roster we needed to get fixed,” Sawvel said.
Some highlight newcomers on the defense include a 300-pound defensive tackle Aneesh Vyas, a graduate transfer from Bucknell University who was a two-time all-Patriot League selection. Sawvel also added an exciting prospect at the defensive end position in Esaia Bogar, a talented junior college transfer who was named the National Southern Conference Defensive Player of the Year playing at Riverside City College in California. Weber State transfer safety Brayden Wilson also brings some much-needed depth to the Cowboys’ secondary, as he led the Big Sky conference in tackles for loss last season.
Sawvel also signed 19 players on offense and special teams, though the Cowboys will likely be more reliant on some of their returners on the offensive side of the ball than on the defensive side of the ball. A big highlight when it comes to the Cowboys’ offensive signees would be the signing of quarterback Mason Drube, a Wyoming and Gillette native whom Sawvel and his staff are very excited about. Drube was highly sought after out of Campbell County High School, including multiple Power Four offers.
“When Mason committed, that was huge,” Sawvel said in December. “I think it’s really neat, right? You have a Wyoming [native] that then has the chance to be the quarterback at Wyoming, I think that’s outstanding.”
Sawvel was adamant about his standards heading into this offseason, noting during his final presser of 2024 that some players on the current roster may even be asked to leave the team if they don’t meet the standards of his culture–which is all about living, eating and breathing football.
“I want to see if they love it,” Sawvel said about his offseason recruiting philosophy. “I want to see if they go to bed and wake up in the morning and the first thing they think about is football, and this group does.”
While only a few productive players were lost to the transfer portal on either side of the ball, Sawvel was able to retain some of the most intriguing prospects from last year–including his gunslinging freshman quarterback Kaden Anderson, the bulk of his raw, but talented, receiving core and their star running back who was sidelined for a large portion of last season, Harrison Waylee.
“We wanted to keep our team together, and the players we needed to be here are here,” Sawvel said.
With a new, imminent ruling limiting the number of scholarship players you can have on a team to 105, Sawvel will still have work to do in the spring when it comes to locking in his full roster for the 2025 season. With more than 105 players vying for those scholarships, competition in the Cowboys’ spring camp will undoubtedly be tight, as Sawvel’s roster battles amongst each other to prove themselves to the Cowboys’ newly motivated and unrelenting second-year head coach.
“The 105 [roster limitation] makes you define out every position,” Sawvel said.
With spring practices commencing in late March, it won’t be long before Cowboy football begins its journey to define itself for a hopeful 2025 season.
“We’ve got to be a far more violent football team, we’re not anywhere close to where we need to be and we’re going to figure that out this spring,” Sawvel said.
