Alex Taylor: Taylor When will the Cowboys win the big games?

Nov. 3—All offseason, University of Wyoming football coach Craig Bohl talked about how this year's Cowboys would be different.

Picked to finish sixth in the Mountain West preseason poll, the Cowboys stormed out of the gate with notable wins over Texas Tech and Appalachian State in the nonconference season, even hanging with then-No. 4-ranked Texas for three quarters in front of 100,000 fans in Austin.

The momentum carried over into UW's first win over an Associated Press-ranked opponent since 2016, beating then-No. 24 Fresno State at home to reach an unexpected mark of 5-1 going into week seven.

The win garnered UW 42 points in the AP poll, good enough for No. 27 in the country. Bohl's declaration of this year's Cowboys being a different team seemed to be coming to fruition, but the wheels came off on the team's trip to the Air Force Academy.

The Cowboys watched an early 14-0 lead disappear, falling 34-27 after being outscored 17-6 by the Falcons in the second half. The loss has served as a key catalyst for UW's downward spiral ever since.

UW's bye week came at a crucial time following its first conference loss, but the Cowboys didn't take advantage of it. UW had two weeks to prepare for Boise State, a team the Cowboys had beaten just once in 17 previous attempts.

UW laid an egg in all three facets against the Broncos, losing 32-7 to fall to 0-9 all time at Albertsons Stadium. Just when the Cowboys started to look like a different team, the team likely dropped out of MW title contention with a pair of lackluster performances against two of the conference's top teams.

"Boise State was rearing and ready to play, and we were not," Bohl said Monday. "The million dollar question is why, and one of the things I guess I would say is that we have been successful because we have really utilized the potential that we have and we've played with a chip on our shoulder in most of our games.

"This game, maybe, I don't want to say maybe we read our press clippings or looked too far ahead — I, certainly as a coaching staff, we didn't see any of those things coming with how we practiced; but, nonetheless, that's the facts. I addressed it (Sunday) with our team, and I was really disappointed. But it's a loss, and we have to move on."

The blowout loss dropped the Cowboys to 18-50 on the road since Bohl was hired in 2014. Under Bohl, UW has one road win over a MW team that ended the season with a winning record (Utah State in 2021), according to Cody Tucker of 7220sports.com.

Bohl's record on the road isn't great for being the highest-paid coach in the MW. Bohl is the fifth-highest paid coach in the Group of 5 with a salary just north of $2.3 million this year, according to Sports Illustrated.

What did the Cowboys do during the bye week? UW was unprepared against the Broncos, and it showed on both sides of the ball. The Cowboys brand themselves on running the ball, and they tallied just 27 rushing yards on 24 attempts (1.1 yards per carry) at Boise State. How?

"What I failed to do was really express to our team the type of opponent that we were going to be playing," Bohl said. "I think our players might have looked and said, 'OK, they have a losing record, they're not like Boise (of the past), and this is our chance and we're going to whoop up on them.

"I knew enough that (Boise State was) going to come in and be like a caged animal and play really relentless, hard and aggressive, and I failed to get that across. So, I don't necessarily think I would have changed the practice routine (during the bye week), but I probably should have spent more time going through and really emphasizing that they have really good players who were heavily recruited that have not played well, and they just lost a game that they never should have lost (against CSU)."

The Cowboys beat Texas Tech due, in part, to playing with a chip on their shoulder. Same with Fresno State. Over the past three weeks, that chip has been nowhere to be found since the second half started at Air Force. It didn't make the trip to Boise, either.

"Most of the time, we talk about our mentality, where our mentality should have been one of, 'OK, we're getting ready to play Texas Tech, and we have a chip on our shoulder, and man, if we don't bring our A game, we're going to get embarrassed,'" Bohl said about the Boise State loss. "They weren't ready. I failed to get our football team ready. We can't do anything about that, and we have to move on."

Bohl's Cowboys have struggled to get over the hump since he came to Laramie. UW has played in one MW title game in his tenure, a 27-24 loss with Josh Allen against San Diego State in 2016 at War Memorial Stadium.

The Cowboys were one play away against Air Force from their first AP Top 25 ranking since 1998, but now UW is on a two-game skid and on the outside looking in for the MW title game.

Did losing to the Aztecs in Bohl's only championship game appearance at UW set the tone for the next seven years?

"We addressed our shortcomings in the Boise game," Bohl said. "I was real explicit with the men in this room (Sunday) on what I saw. Then, we booked it. We said, 'OK, now, turn the page, because Colorado State doesn't care that we got our butts kicked.' And I told our team, I said, 'We just got taken to the woodshed by a team that (lost to CSU), so, we better get our stingers up and quit feeling sorry for ourselves.

"... I did not see remnants of a hangover, but I need to caution that with, I did not see a train wreck coming. I saw what I thought was going to be a really, really good opponent. I did not see us performing the way we did. We've made too many steps. We looked somewhat like what we used to look, and that's got to get (fixed)."

The Cowboys have 28 juniors, two seniors and nine graduate students on the roster. Most are playing in their final season in Laramie.

With such a mature team, the collective goal going into the season was to win UW's first MW title since joining the conference in 1999. While the goal isn't dead yet, it's now in the hands of the other top teams in the conference to lose games down the stretch.

"If you look too far out there in front of you, and you take your eye off the opponent and you start thinking about, 'OK, we're in position if we do this, and this bowl game and conference championship,' that only comes about if you beat Boise State. Well, we didn't do it," Bohl said. "We can't do anything about that now. We damn sure better do something about Colorado State. So, I have great belief. They're a great group. We didn't play well, and I didn't coach well."

The Cowboys will host CSU for the 115th installment of the Border War at 6 p.m. Friday at War Memorial Stadium.

Alex Taylor is the assistant editor for WyoSports and covers University of Wyoming athletics. He can be reached at ataylor@wyosports.net. Follow him on X at @alex_m_taylor22.