Are These Cowboys For Real?

[MrTitleist]

http://www.wyonation.com/2016/10/are-these-cowboys-for-real/

Looking over the first half of the season, and looking ahead a little bit. The Cowboys might be for real. What do you guys think?

 

[laxwyo]

http://www.wyonation.com/2016/10/are-these-cowboys-for-real/

Looking over the first half of the season, and looking ahead a little bit. The Cowboys might be for real. What do you guys think?

I think they might be!! Looking at the other teams, I feel like we have a chance to win any of them, but also lose any of them.


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[WYCowboy]

I need to see how the Pokes look coming off the bye week to see if we have what it is going to take for the second half of the season. The first half was impressive.

 

[J-Rod]

I need to see how the Pokes look coming off the bye week to see if we have what it is going to take for the second half of the season. The first half was impressive.

Watched a little of Reno last night. That might be the worst team in the MW. I'll be surprised if UW doesn't win by 20+.

 

[Poke-proud]

http://www.wyonation.com/2016/10/are-these-cowboys-for-real/

Looking over the first half of the season, and looking ahead a little bit. The Cowboys might be for real. What do you guys think?

Much improved from last year - and I'm all in for Bohl. I believe we'll be better than 6 - ?, and might well go to a Bowl game. That said i think the defense will have some "lapses" which will frustrate us against teams such as Boise State and SDSU. Those games are late enough in the season we may get "grown up" enough we play them both tough.


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[Cosmic Cowboy]

The MWC seems hella down this year which sort of skews the "for real" argument a tad. It's hard to judge them and they aren't good enough for me to believe "oh yeah we'll smoke those guys" vs anyone (its kinda of nice to have that Wyoming humble reserved judgement). That said this is no doubt one of the easiest on the eyes Poke's football teams we've seen in a decade. I love how much fire they played with against AF & CSU, they have to carry that intensity into every day. The Granderson injury might be a really big one. I'm reserved with a for real tag for football and kind of need to see success replicated in multiple seasons for me to say that. Everyone here has seen Pokes teams like this just completely fall apart around this time in the past or limp into bowls. I will say that this team has multiple players that have styles and personalities on the field that I dig. For me this is the most exciting team since Tiller/Dimel era.

 

[Cowboy Junky]

The Nevada game is a chance to answer a few more questions.

How will the defense do without our best pass rusher/best defensive lineman?
Can we win on the road against a team that isn't our rival?
Can we beat a team on the road that we're favored against, coming off a bye week, with an additional week to prepare?

Even though we should be favorites against the Wolfpack, I'm still not 100 percent confident we'll go there and win.

If we beat Nevada, then yes, I'll say we're for real this season. If not, then we aren't for real. If we lose to Nevada it will look like we're a team that can beat lower level competition at home and can get up for rival games.

There's still questions about our road performance and conference teams that aren't our rivals. This week should help eliminate those questions OR make it obvious that maybe we're not as far along as we think.

If we beat Nevada, it will open up a whole new set of questions:

1. Can we challenge for the MWC title game this year?
2. Do we have the depth to maintain our level of play throughout the entire season?
3. Are we good enough to get the Boise monkey off our backs?

I'm glad we're asking these questions, because I don't think many of us could have imagined that we would be asking these questions this season. Most of us thought these questions we're at least a season away.

How do we define "for real"? Are we for real if we make a bowl game? Do we need to challenge for the conference title to be considered for real? It looks like we're definitely a bowl team this year, maybe not if we lose to Nevada. If we beat Nevada, we'll find out if we're a legit contender for the conference title the following week vs. Boise. Personally, I don't consider 6-6 for real, I consider it average. 7-5 is slightly above average. 8-4 and above is "for real".

Step one: beat the Wolfpack.

Go Pokes!

 

[laxwyo]

I agree junky! We need to pound Nevada. If we don't, there will be lots of questions. We can't be for real if we don't beat a down Nevada team on the road.

I'd say we look like the second tier. Not quite BSU/SDSU level, but we're getting there

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[J-Rod]

Interesting. Wyo opens as only a 3-point favorite. I'm sorry, but if Wyoming can't beat Nevada convincingly, the words "MW title contender" should be nowhere near the Cowboy vocabulary. That is arguably the MW's worst team. They were *shredded* by a Hawaii team that lost to UNLV at home for Christ's sake...and have just looked awful. Throw the numbers away...from an eye test standpoint Nevada is just really, really bad. A team with no strengths, only weaknesses.

 

[Cowboy Junky]

Interesting. Wyo opens as only a 3-point favorite. I'm sorry, but if Wyoming can't beat Nevada convincingly, the words "MW title contender" should be nowhere near the Cowboy vocabulary. That is arguably the MW's worst team. They were *shredded* by a Hawaii team that lost to UNLV at home for Christ's sake...and have just looked awful. Throw the numbers away...from an eye test standpoint Nevada is just really, really bad.

Agreed. I don't think we need to beat them convincingly though. Any win on the road makes us 5-2. Even if we blow a huge lead like we did against AFA, at the end of the day, the win is all that matters. We're not in the top 25 so we don't get style points for victories.

We need to beat Nevada and give our fans a reason to pack the War for Boise the following week.

A loss to Nevada ends the question though. We'll be 4-3, looking at a struggle to get bowl eligible and finish .500. It's still possible we make a bowl after losing to Nevada, but it makes it extremely likely our ceiling is .500/average.

5-2 going into Boise looks like a team that's "for real". 4-3 looks like a team that has a chance to be average.

 

[DVDA]

People are getting a little high on this team because of two good wins. Wyoming is the third best team in this conference, but the gap between 3rd and last isn't significant enough to call any game a sure thing, especially on the road. How quickly do we forget this team lost embarrassingly to a middle of the road MWC caliber team in EMU. Going 4-8 is a possibility for UW. I don't expect that to happen and believe Bohl is too good of a coach to let it happen, but it could happen with a few bad breaks or with injuries to the wrong guys. A couple plays were the difference between a win and a loss at EMU. It was the same way with Air Force. Every game from here on out can be lost by UW. On the other hand, every game is also winnable which is a feeling we haven't had in a while. A win at Nevada would put UW in the drivers seat for a bowl game as it all but ensures in my eyes that the team will get to 6 wins. A loss cuts back the odds of a bowl game significantly although I believe they will still hit 6 wins.