Peasley feeling comfortable with UW's offense going into final season
Aug. 28—It isn't often a position group has its top three players return in college football, but that's the case for the University of Wyoming at quarterback this fall.
Andrew Peasley returns as the Cowboys' starter under center, with backups Evan Svoboda and Jayden Clemons returning behind him. Svoboda went into fall camp as the primary backup, surpassing Clemons on the depth chart after serving in the No. 3 role a year ago.
Peasley's first season under center for UW was a bumpy road. After the Cowboys started the season 7-3, a four-game winning streak turned into a three-game losing streak to end the year 7-6.
Much of the Cowboys' struggles came back to inconsistent quarterback play, with UW ranking 125th out of 131 FBS teams in total passing offense at 132.2 yards per game. Peasley completed just 52.4% of his passes last year, and struggled with turnovers late in the season to finish with just 10 touchdowns to nine interceptions.
His main goal going into his final college season has been to improve his completion rate and last year's average of just 5.7 yards per completion.
"I think I was 53% throwing last year," Peasley said. "For me, that puts a chip on my shoulder. A lot of people say I can't throw consistently. There's just a bunch of little things that I missed, and I have a lot to improve on, so that's my plan."
It's no secret UW favors the running game offensively, which was a big stylistic change for Peasley after he spent his first four seasons at Utah State. Learning UW's pro-style offense was rushed for Peasley last year, and it showed in the box scores.
Going into year two, Peasley's comfortability running the Cowboys' offense should turn a corner. Understanding the playbook will be the key for Peasley's success under center, and UW's success as an offense.
"Last year, he was still inexperienced in our offense," UW coach Craig Bohl said. "... We thought he was very competent when it came to run-checks. He had a really good understanding, and we're complex in our running game, but he had a really good understanding of that.
"I think there were times that he pressed on certain things by throwing the ball. A couple of initial read progressions were out of sync. I thought a couple times he panicked a little bit, pulled the ball down and did some of those things. There has been a different demeanor with him over the course of winter and now spring. ... I really believe another year in our system is going to benefit him and it's going to benefit our offense, as well."
Svoboda was able to leapfrog Clemons on the depth chart with a solid spring camp. UW lost Hank Gibbs and Caden Becker to the NCAA transfer portal, but was back up to six quarterbacks on the roster going into fall camp with the additions of incoming freshmen Kaden Anderson, Gage Brook and Carson May.
"I tell all of the quarterbacks that I waited four years to finally play a full season," Peasley said. "It's all about patience at quarterback. We all have to improve, we all have our things to improve on, and I think me being in a leadership role for them is good, but they teach me a lot of things, too."
Svoboda credits Peasley's leadership for helping him grow as a quarterback enough to win the No. 2 job. Now, Svoboda will continue to try and learn as much as he can from Peasley while he still can.
"He's an experienced guy," Svoboda said. "He has years under his belt playing at Utah State. It's great to see how he sees the game versus how we see it. With him being an older guy and him getting the reps against those teams, it's great to see how he plays and how he functions.
"Him teaching that to us, he's kind of like our mentor and our leader in that room. It's great to have him around, and it's awesome that he teaches us everything that he has experienced and everything that he has done. He kind of just sheds it down onto us and teaches us."
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 Twitter at @alex_m_taylor22.
