Redshirt Freshman CB Anthony Makransky is one of many freshman who will see plenty of playing time this fall for UW.
Earlier in the week during his press conference ahead of the North Dakota game, second year Wyoming head coach Craig Bohl stated that Wyoming has the second fewest seniors in all of college football. Coming into the season Wyoming has a total of just eight seniors two more than (last place) Wake Forest who have six seniors. This is a sobering reality and illustrates the roster turnover Wyoming has had since ditching Dave Christensen’s pass happy spread offense for the more balanced pro-style system preferred by Bohl.
With so few seniors on the roster Wyoming will lean on their junior and sophomore class for leadership with fourteen true freshmen slated to play for the Pokes this fall and an additional eight redshirt freshman listed on this week’s depth chart. Bohl is high on this freshman class though and compared them to freshman classes of his past, “that propelled us at North Dakota State to some greatness.”
Youth will be served for Wyoming football this season and they are going to be served with a great deal of playing time. With so many inexperienced players due to take the field, it is unavoidable that they will struggle at times this season and there could be considerable growing pains. These struggles should be short term though and could lay the foundations for Wyoming and coach Bohl to have a very strong and experienced team two or three seasons from now.
The state of Wyoming is starving for a winning football program and under the leadership of Bohl I believe the Cowboys will eventually get there. This may take some time to build though given the current state of the program. The people of Wyoming will be patient with this team as long as they can see that the Pokes are playing hard each Saturday and are steadily improving. The basketball program under the leadership of Larry Shyatt has shown that and the fans were paid off with a conference title this last season. Bohl is trying to create a similar culture within the football program and his history of turning unheralded players into solid players in their junior and senior years at North Dakota State bodes well for the future of Wyoming football.
Wyoming may not have the type of success they or the fans would like this season but know Craig Bohl is playing the long game and through his youth movement he very well may produce results similar to Larry Shyatt’s in a few years’ time.
What do you think WyoNation, what do you need to see from the football team and the young players this season to feel good about the long-term health of the program under coach Bohl?