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Long year...

We all agree the coach isn’t the right fit, but when are we going to come to terms that it’s not just X’s and O’s. It’s time to look at some of the Jimmy's and Joes. Without serious upgrades to our NIL donations, I’m not sure if Vince Lombardi could turn this around. This thought depresses me.
 
phxpoke said:
Without serious upgrades to our NIL donations, I’m not sure if Vince Lombardi could turn this around.
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Wyoming Fans would step up if we had a real HC, a real personality and a real vision. Has Sawful ever elaborated what his vision is? Blowing up the Offense? Bring in someone like MORA after Bohl and see us in the PAC12, revenues way up and today we are celebrating beating No Texas in Laramie.
 
WyoVaquero said:
We have not improved that much. gonna be a long year. worst case scenario is we finish 6-6 and sawful keeps his job.
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He needs to win 2 games to keep his job. That’s it. That’s the very likely reality. He has a guaranteed contract.

New AD starts July 1, 2027. New AD hires a new coach sometime during/end 2027 season.
 
Douglaspoke said:
Wyoming Fans would step up if we had a real HC, a real personality and a real vision. Has Sawful ever elaborated what his vision is? Blowing up the Offense? Bring in someone like MORA after Bohl and see us in the PAC12, revenues way up and today we are celebrating beating No Texas in Laramie.
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I’m getting on my soapbox here, and this is gonna be long.

I don’t know that we can confidently say Wyoming fans would step up if we had the right coach, personality, and vision. Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn’t. This is a fan base — and frankly a state — that can be pretty resistant to change. There’s still a lot of skepticism around NIL, spending money to compete, and what modern college athletics actually requires.

But that’s also exactly the problem: we’ll never know because Wyoming has given people almost nothing to get excited about.

Since I became affiliated with the university in 2013, Wyoming athletics has increasingly felt apathetic. There are entire generations of younger alumni who have never really experienced Wyoming athletics as something worth getting emotionally invested in. You can’t spend years putting out an uninspiring product and then point to an apathetic fan base as proof that the market isn’t there.

This is a question Wyoming should have been answering the moment NIL started proliferating.

I’m not under any illusion that Wyoming is ever going to have Michigan, Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, or Oregon money. Hell, we may never have Georgia Tech, UCF, or Vanderbilt money either. Fine.

But look at the top end of the G6: Boise State, Memphis, Tulane, UNLV, Navy, James Madison, North Dakota State. If Wyoming cannot generate enough institutional support, donor engagement, NIL resources, and general investment to realistically compete with that group, then we need to have a much more serious conversation about what exactly we’re doing.

James Madison is an example of why I don’t buy the idea that Wyoming’s circumstances make relevance impossible. JMU has gone through multiple coaches, jumped from FCS to FBS, and basically became nationally relevant immediately. Their success hasn’t depended on one magical coach. They’ve built something that survives leadership turnover.

Wyoming obviously has disadvantages. Geography, population matters, recruiting footprint, etc.. But those things do not explain the size of the gap between Wyoming and programs that consistently find their way into the national conversation.

At some point, persistent irrelevance stops being a circumstance and starts being an organizational outcome.

Good programs lose coaches and replace them. They adapt to NIL. They figure out fundraising. They build a recognizable identity. They establish expectations that survive individual people. They make people want to be in the building, and be part of what they’re building.

Wyoming has had plenty of time to do the same.

Maybe Wyoming fans ultimately wouldn’t support the investment required. Maybe the donor base isn’t there. Maybe the state simply doesn’t have the appetite for what modern college football has become. Those are all legitimate possibilities.

But we should know the answer by now.

Instead, it feels like we’ve spent the NIL era hoping college football would remain recognizable enough that Wyoming could just keep doing things the way Wyoming has always done them while everybody else adapts around us.

And that brings me back to the original point: what is the vision?

What is Sawvel actually trying to build? What is Burman’s vision for Wyoming football in this version of college athletics? Where are we trying to be in five years? Are we trying to compete at the top of the G6? Are we trying to position ourselves for whatever the next round of realignment looks like? Or are we content being bowl-eligible every few years and celebrating beating North Texas in Laramie?

Because if that’s the ceiling, just say it.

Burman is a nice dude. I’ve met him, I’ve talked with him, and I’ve enjoyed him personally. But the level of apathy that has developed around Wyoming athletics under his leadership is unacceptable.

Maybe hiring someone like Mora after Bohl wouldn’t have changed anything. Maybe Wyoming still wouldn’t have ended up in the Pac-12. Maybe revenues wouldn’t have exploded. Maybe the fans wouldn’t have shown up.

But at least we would have tested the ceiling.

Right now, it feels like we’ve mostly tested how much mediocrity people are willing to tolerate and then acted surprised when they stopped caring.
 
I cannot think this will sit well with the General. He was making a pretty big deal about this game prior to it being played. Seeing the Sawful show in person and the person responsible for it, Reeves has to be feeling our frustration. I am hoping he does what needs to be done to get rid of this clown show.

WE BELIEVE IN YOU, PRESIDENT REEVES. DO THE RIGHT THING!!!
 
PAPoke said:
Maybe Wyoming fans ultimately wouldn’t support the investment required. Maybe the donor base isn’t there. Maybe the state simply doesn’t have the appetite for what modern college football has become. Those are all legitimate possibilities.

But we should know the answer by now.
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If you have to answer this question right now with the evidence available.... It's that the specific circumstances at Wyoming do not support a successful college football program.

Your post is spot on. Despite the rantings of so many of us die-hards, I can no longer pin this on one individual coach or AD.
 
Honestly--you have to give Bohl a pass on years one and two! He took over a s---- show maybe larger than what Sawful may leave.
 
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