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Wyoming (1-0) Week 1: Win 10-0 at Akron (0-1) Week 2: vs Northern Iowa (1-0) Nebraska (1-0) Week 1: Win 20-17 vs Cincinnati (0-1) Week 2: vs Akron (0-1) UAB (1-0) Week 1: Win 52-42 vs Alabama State (0-1) Week 2: at Navy (1-0) Duquesne (0-1) Week 1: Loss 61-9 at Pittsburgh (1-0) Week 2: vs Lincoln (0-1) Toledo (0-1) Week 1: Loss 24-16 at Kentucky (1-0) Week 2: vs Western Kentucky (2-0) Central Michigan (1-0) Week 1: Win 16-14 at San Jose State (0-1) Week 2: at Pittsburgh (1-0) Miami (0-1) Week 1: Loss 17-0 at Wisconsin (1-0) Week 2: at Rutgers (1-0) Ball State (0-1) Week 1: Loss 31-0 at Purdue (1-0) Week 2: at Auburn (1-0) Buffalo (0-1) Week 1: Loss 23-10 at Minnesota (1-0) Week 2: vs St. Francis (0-1) UMASS (0-1) Week 1: Loss 42-10 vs Temple (1-0) Week 2: vs Bryant (0-1) Kent State (1-0) Week 1: Win 21-17 vs Merrimack (0-1) Week 2: at Texas Tech (1-0) Bowling Green (1-0) Week 1: Win 26-7 vs Lafayette (0-1) Week 2: at Cincinnati (0-1)

Off the top of my head, I remember our center completely whiffing on a defensive lineman twice—pretty sure both were by Lyons. I also don’t blame Finley for the 3rd and longs when Wyoming brought more than we could block. In those situations, the best-case scenario is usually a short completion where the receiver picks up some YAC. Outside of that, it just wasn’t a good day for our QB1. I kept waiting for him to get hot—he can be a streaky player at times—but it never happened. According to PFF, Wyoming blitzed 14 times, and Finley went 6 of 14 on those plays. Out of his 38 total attempts, he was supposedly kept clean on 24 of them. The brutal part is he only completed 11 passes for 93 yards in those clean pockets and even threw an interception. That won’t cut it against anyone on our schedule. For what it’s worth, PFF graded the OL fairly well overall, with the exception of both centers. Also of note, looks like they went through and updated some stats. True freshman Kenneth McManus was our highest rated lineman and 2nd highest rated player on offense.

Talk about letting a prime opportunity go to waste. QB: I think we all knew this offense would go as Finley went, and unfortunately he picked a bad night to have one of his worst games. I honestly expected a lot more from both teams and came away disappointed. Granted, it’s Week 1 and there’s plenty of time to improve, but the offense won’t get much better if Finley doesn’t take a big step forward. He consistently missed throws that we saw him make with ease last year. The most concerning part is Wyoming isn’t a good team and probably won’t win many more games this season. RB: Patrick was as dynamic as expected. I don’t have the stats to back it up, but I’m almost certain our yards after contact dropped significantly after he went down. He’s a true playmaker, and we need him on the field. Gant looked dinged up to me. His vision and elusiveness were there, but he didn’t show much burst or explosiveness. M. Williams did fine with the opportunities he got, though he’s not on the same level as the first two backs. WR: The one good deep ball Finley threw was dropped by Adams, and that pretty much set the tone for the passing game. I don’t recall Adams getting many, if any, targets after that drop. I was also left wondering why Mason didn’t see many targets earlier—he made a few catches late, and it’s clear he brings something the other receivers don’t. There’s definitely talent in this group, and they’ll need to come down with some tough catches, but there weren’t many quality balls to work with. TE: Outside of some decent blocks in the run game, we got very little from this position. Newell did not suit up and our other tight ends did not make much of an impact. OL: Coming into the season I felt good about the IOL and had more concerns with the OTs. As it turned out, the tackles held up fine while the interior had issues in pass protection. There were also several times when the pocket was there for Finley to step into, but he bailed and scrambled into trouble—very reminiscent of early 2024. Overall, the OL was serviceable in the run game and created some holes. I’m not calling this a top-half MAC unit by any stretch, but they did enough to give the offense a chance. I think our two OTs (Johnson and King) played the entire game. DL: JUCO transfer DT Julien Laventure was a terror against Wyoming’s All-MWC linemen. Defensive ends Dall and Durham had their moments too. The rest of the DL may not have stood out individually, but they did a solid job holding their ground and making life tough on the OL. Credit to our new defensive line coach for landing Laventure. Now the focus has to be on developing some depth for when he comes off the field. LB: I’ll be honest, I didn’t see any drop-off in our linebacker play from last year. Multiple guys rotated in, and from what I could tell, they were rarely out of position or missing tackles. Summers and Cooper took the majority of snaps. True freshman Markus Boswell managed to come up with an interception in limited play. CB: I thought our cornerbacks were excellent in both coverage and run support. Granted, Wyoming really only had one true playmaker at receiver, but as a group the corners held up well. DeWalt, White (before injury), and Reed especially stood out. NB: I could be wrong here, but I’m fairly confident saying I counted several missed tackles that turned into big plays in the run game, plus a key reception in the 4th quarter by a receiver who wasn’t anything special. We definitely missed Darrian Lewis. Hopefully play at this spot improves quickly. S: Anderson picked up right where he left off last year, and his running mate was mostly DiMarco Johnson. Both stepped up at different times and looked well prepared. ST: Outside of a long missed 49(?) yard field goal, special teams were excellent. The lone kickoff was deep, punting and coverage were fantastic—no major mistakes in any area. Coaching: Offensively, I thought the game plan was fine, but the execution left a lot to be desired. I liked how often we ran the ball in the first half and tried to get it our best playmaker, Patrick. Normally, that’s a formula for success. But throwing the ball in the end zone after punishing Wyoming’s defense with the run on that drive was inexcusable. The sad part? I even said out loud, “we better not throw the ball here,” and sure enough… In no universe should this team be getting shut out by a not-so-good (to be polite) Wyoming team. Defensively, we gave up too many yards, but the unit made big stops repeatedly. Can’t fault the defense for this loss. Rotation: QB: Finley Johnson RB: Patrick Gant M. Williams WR: Adams Polk Louis Mason Grear Walker Monterio TE: Cravaack Whisner LT D. Johnson LG McManus A. Jones C Lyons Morris RG Davis Archer RT King DE: Durham D. Frazier Dall Cheatom Duncan DT: Laventure Mixon Hull Murphy LB: Cooper Boswell Summers Spriggs CB: White DeWalt Reed Kamara NB: Al. Branch Thomas Aa. Branch S: Johnson Al. Branch Anderson Al. Branch ST: KO - Wiley K - Wiley P - Castle Johnson I checked PFF against what I thought I saw and they have some players listed that I don’t remember seeing: Hunter Madden Vega Benenge J. Frazier Top Rated on Offense (At least 20 snaps): (RB) Patrick (RT) King (LG) A. Jones (LT) D. Johnson (RB) Gant Top Rated on Defense (At least 20 snaps): (LB) Summers (LB) Cooper (DT) Laventure (CB) DeWalt (S) J. Anderson

Best guess is it was Monday at the latest. In the Monday episode there was a comment about this episode as if it had already been filmed.

Not yet.

Wyoming’s depth chart is out. I tried posting above, but was having tech issues. There are few surprises compared to what was expected heading into fall camp, though for the most part it looks about as anticipated.

SEC likely moving to a 9 game conference schedule with the CFP agreeing to place more emphasis on Strength of Schedule.

My guess is it’ll still look pretty similar to what’s already listed, with a few changes. Laventure should grab one of the DT spots, and Lyons seems to be in the mix for an interior OL role as he was named a team captain. One of the transfer receivers—either Marcel Williams or Cameron Monteiro—has popped in the camp highlights with some nice catches. And with Greenwood no longer on the roster, the Nickel spot will be open for competition as well.

They’ll probably be on ESPN+.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/45968911/2025-preseason-college-football-bottom-10 We didn’t land in the Bottom 10 going into Week 1 (or is it still Week 0?), but we did end up on the “Waiting List.” Two of our opponents, though, weren’t as lucky.

If this year’s team can’t at least get to six wins with a schedule that features two three-win G5 teams from last season, an FCS opponent, and five MAC programs breaking in new head coaches, then some changes need to be made.

I’m curious as well. My guess is it’ll be Hull and Laventure—Hull being the best DT in the spring and Laventure subsequently earning the #1 jersey on defense.

He also seems to be a bit of a nomad—hasn’t stuck around at one school for more than a year outside of his GA and playing days.

Looks like we’re down a CBs coach less than a month away from kickoff. Not ideal.

They’re in a similar spot to us along the D-Line right now—either last year’s backups or new transfers will be stepping into starting roles. So, they’re still figuring out exactly what they’ve got. I agree that depth matters, but there’s also a chance the guys who went down weren’t going to be impactful contributors anyway. One was projected to start, but the last time he saw the field was 2023 and even then, it was in a backup role with fewer than 75 snaps all season. If I’m the head coach, I’m more concerned with the trend here—three achilles injuries? That’s not normal. One or two, sure, that happens. But three? I’d be taking a hard look at whatever the strength and conditioning staff is doing with these guys.

Doubt this matters too much at this point, as there’s still plenty of time to figure things out, but Wyoming is already down three defensive linemen for the season—a projected starter at DT, a backup DT, and a backup DE.

Wow, was not expecting that. This kid had offers from a number of big time programs at one point. Not sure if all offers were for QB or a different position, but major recruiting win for this staff.

He certainly said all the right things. Maybe he proves me wrong, but I still dont think he has enough talent and experience on this year’s roster to make much noise. They’ll probably start out with a win in their first game and then lose the next five. The back half of their schedule is definitely more manageable than the front half.

That’s one reason why it’s so important to win this year. We’re right back to two payday games next year—maybe even three Power 5 opponents if UNLV ends up in the PAC. Not sure how accurate this is, but I heard one outlet say the holdup with UNLV moving is because they have some kind of agreement not to leave Nevada behind. We’ll see what happens.

That’s exactly what schools like South Carolina and Illinois are doing with NIL. They know they don’t have the money to compete with the likes of Texas or Ohio State, so they’re using a big chunk of what they do have on retaining current players. Granted, they still have the flexibility to earmark a percentage for incoming recruiting classes — something a program like Akron just can’t afford to do.

Worth a listen.