I’ve had a few minutes to sit down and watch some Wyoming tape and here are my first impressions:

1. The defense – as usual – is their strong area.  They have a tenacious defensive front and a secondary that they believe can match-up man to man, as well as play solid zone coverage.
2. They love to bring pressure.  The defensive coordinator’s favorite thing in the world is running stunts and hopefully rattling the quarterback’s nerves, forcing him to make bad decisions (I hope they have a plan B).
3. The offense has struggled trying to find its identity.  The coaching staff hasn’t settled on a starting quarterback and neither QB has stepped up and taken the reins of the offensive unit.  (You know…reins…cowboys….I kill myself.)  Most likely, they’ll use both quarterbacks, which will result in neither having the confidence needed to excel.
4. The O’s best players are the running backs.  One has great speed and the other has good size and good speed.  If the Cowboys can establish a running game early and generate some momentum they could quite possibly come within a few touchdowns.
5. All joking aside, this team needs a win real bad.  Their coach’s job is on the line and the Cowboys have always harbored aggression against the Cougars.  When Mr. Jorgensen says that the Pokes think this is a rival game, he isn’t kidding.  Then add the pleasure of possibly disrupting our home winning streak, national winning streak, and our BCS dreams and you have a recipe for a team with a lot of motivation to win.

My first experience against the Cowboys:  We played them at home in 2004 and I played on three special teams.  We had just failed on our third down conversion and we were forced to punt.  As I jogged out to my position I gazed across the field at the guy that was supposed to block me and he was a huge outside linebacker, with his hockey hair flowing out of his helmet.  I took a deep breath and hoped for the best.  Luckily I was faster than he was, so I could juke him one way and then run around him the other way.  But one time he got his hands on me and I ended up on the Cowboys offensive sideline handing out Gatorade to their offensive players.  It was bad, when we watched the film on Monday they kept rewinding the play and asking me, “what kind of Gatorade did their tackle like, was their coach a boxer of brief guy?”  It was a bad film session for Brother Gooch.

The game ended well, and as it turned out, the guy I went against on punt cover was the guy I went against on every other special team that night.  We got to know each other very well.