LARAMIE, Wyo. — Another Saturday evening at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie led to a disappointing loss for Wyoming Cowboy fans. With a 34–14 loss to Brigham Young University, Wyoming is now 0–3 in the season and has officially lost 10 straight games to the BYU Cougars.
In his post-game press conference, Wyoming’s head coach, Jay Sawvel, said that the team’s current position is a tough one to be in.
“It’s just disappointing because, to win that game, we didn’t have margin for error,” Sawvel said. “We made too many errors that strung the game out in a way that we were just unable to win the game.”
Wyoming’s offense stood out once again as a key weakness for the team. Wyoming’s 77 rushing yards and 140 passing yards was dwarfed by BYU’s 140 rushing yards and 318 passing yards. Leading that offense, Wyoming quarterback Evan Svoboda completed just 44% of passes, had one interception and was sacked once as well.
Despite this, Sawvel retains full faith in Svoboda’s leadership. Based off of what he has seen in practice, Sawvel said Svoboda gives the Cowboys their best chance at winning and just needs to work a little more.
“We’ve got to execute better, but I’m standing behind him. Like I said, he’s going to be a good quarterback. We’ve got work to do and we’ve got to be better,” Sawvel said.
The coach added that after these past three games, two of them to dominant Big 12 teams, he is not ready to make a big change in his starting quarterback position. He also highlighted some positives that he saw on the field on the offensive side of the ball. Sawvel said that having tight end John Michael Gyllenborg back on his feet a bit from an injury and tight end Clay Nanke and wide receiver Tyler King showing some promise contributed positively.
“Those are things that we’re going to have to build off of and do. We’re also going to have to manage and play a certain way,” Sawvel said. “We don’t have the margin of error right now of giving up a kickoff return.”
The cougars established an early lead of 14–0 by the second quarter until an 11-play, 75-yard drive led to a two-yard rush from Svoboda got some numbers on the board for the Cowboys. Following a field goal from BYU, the half concluded with a box score of 17–7. Hope was still alive for UW.
Immediately into the second half, a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and 37-yard field goal would establish the final score for the Cougars in the third. It wasn’t until a little over six minutes left of play in the final quarter that Svoboda rushed one yard for Wyoming’s final touchdown.
As a rivalry with a lot of history, this loss was a tough pill to swallow for the Cowboys, especially considering that a rematch won’t be happening anytime soon. There are no currently scheduled games between the two teams for the future.
The Cowboys travel to Denton, Texas, on Saturday for a match against the University of North Texas. Wyoming football has not started a series in this fashion, 0–3, since 2015. A solid week of practice will be the deciding factor in if that losing trend continues.
For more information on the University of Wyoming football team, visit the UW Athletics website.
