Wyoming state comps are hard to come by...it's mostly Alaska, N and S dakota and Montana. Of those states, Wyoming has a collegiate athletic program that is historically more comparable to universities from sates with much larger popluation bases. The designation of college athletics as "amateur" allowed Wyoming to compete well (mostly) in the past but it was alway sort of a nagging thing that our uniqueness might come with a downside that people only daired aknowledge in hushed tones. Now that the the money has exploded and the highest level people in almost every industry can move where-ever they want...it's getting really hard to act like that stuff isn't a factor for places that might have thier charms but are not broadly appreciated.
Specific to the achievements of the football program....ever since the Joe Glen days, if you take the teams away that have left or are now leaving, Wyoming is already very competetive in the top of that group. Look at the group of teams we are going up against next year...Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Northern Illinois, San Jose State, UNLV, and UTEP. Any of them dominating Wyoming over that span of time? Not really...and nobody really enjoyed that era did they? I certainly didn't. This level of the "top of the g6" or whatever you want to call it is crap. It's FCS-lite at best. I guess ultimately if your goal is to compete with the dregs...we have the the Athletic department to do it .... this is obvious because that is the level we have already achieved. We'll have to fire our football coach but that is at least doable. I am missing a time when Wyoming mattered in the larger field of college athletics and that is why, despite acknowledging that TB and his ilk are terrible, I know that forces larger than Wyoming can control have ultimately taken that away.
Does that make sense? I'm not saying we can't beat UNM or UNLV or AFA or NIU...we can and have. We used to be way better than that though...or at least we had a taste of it from time to time. That is just completely gone and it's not really TB's fault....maybe that is why you don't like how I frame this stuff.