Wyoming Wins Football Season Opener Against Weber State

It came down to the final minute, but the Wyoming Cowboys did manage to defeat the Weber State Wildcats 35-32 on Saturday night at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie.

True freshman quarterback Brett Smith made his collegiate debut starting for the Cowboys Saturday night. His first pass attempt resulted in an interception which allowed Weber State to put the first points on the scoreboard. But by the time he completed a game winning 9-yd pass to Robert Herron with 22 seconds remaining in the game, Wyoming fans had long forgiven him.

Well I think it's pretty obvious, that's a pretty defining moment right there.  For a true freshmen to come in down with two minutes to go, got run the two minute offense, and ran it to perfection.

-Wyoming Head Coach Dave Christensen

The Cowboy offense finished the night with 463 yards of total offense, 169 yards rushing and 294 yards passing. The unfortunate thing is that the Weber State offense had 541 yards of offense on 227 yards rushing and 314 yards passing. When it came down to it, Weber State's head coach, Ron McBride, said Wyoming was the team that made plays when they had to be made.

"When you get a chance to close a show, you've gotta close it. We had an opportunity to close the show against these guys and we didn't do it. It's not so much what they did, so much what we didn't do."
-Weber State Head Coach Ron McBride

In his debut, Brett Smith completed 27-of-41 pass attempts for 294 yards and threw one interception. He rushed for one touchdown and threw three touchdown passes.  After leading the time on the game-winning drive, Smith couldn't say what was going through his mind.

I just knew we were score.  We had practiced that so many times at practice.  I had failed many times.  When I went out there, I had complete confidence cause I had done hundreds of times, and with the guys around me and with the line that I have, I knew that we were gonna get in the endzone.

-UW Freshmen QB Brett Smith

Brandon Miller carried the ball 10 time for a net gain of 59 yards, while Smith held onto the ball 13 times for a net gain of 66 yards.

The receivers were led by Robert Herron with 7 catches for 104 yards and 2 touchdowns, including a 45-yarder which was Wyoming's longest completion. Alvester Alexander and Mazi Ogbonna caught 6 passes each for 62 and 42 yards, respectively.

On the defensive side, Luke Ruff had 10 total tackles. Korey Jones had 9 tackles including one for loss and Marqueston Huff also 9 tackles.

Wyoming (1-0) will host Texas State (0-1) on Saturday, Sept. 10 at 4:00 p.m. in Laramie, Wyo. It will be Military Appreciation Night at War Memorial Stadium.