Pokes Football: Best of Colorado – No. 20

LARAMIE -- No other state has been more of a recruiting hotbed for the University of Wyoming than Colorado.

This list will prove that.

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Numerous UW Hall of Famers, NFL stars and program record holders began their football journey in that square to the south. The Cowboys' top rival, Colorado State, overlooked plenty of these guys. So did CU. Air Force even whiffed a time or two.

Some just flat out picked Laramie over Fort Collins, Boulder and Colorado Springs.

This summer, with the help of some longtime Wyoming football followers, we will count down the Top 25 Colorado products in program history. As always, what these guys did in professional football doesn't matter. This is all about production in Laramie.

No. 20 - Cooper Rothe

Kicker, 2016-19, Longmont, Colorado

Résumé in Laramie

No one in Wyoming football history has accounted for more points than former placekicker Cooper Rothe. He connected on 59 field goals and 165 point-after attempts, both of which are still school records. The Longmont, Colo., product was a perfect 2-for-2 on kicks longer than 50 yards. The final field goal of his career was his longest. In a 38-17 win over Georgia State in the Arizona Bowl, Rothe booted through a 53 yarder. After missing seven kicks during his true freshman season, Rothe failed to connect on just four over the next two years, including only once in 2018. He was named one of three Lou Groza Award finalists for that effort. He was also named the Mountain West Conference Special Teams Player of the Year after hitting 16-of-17 attempts. That season he was the top-ranked kicker in the nation with a 94.1 percentage. Rothe appeared in three bowl games during his time in Laramie and helped lead the Cowboys to a Mountain Division title in 2016.

About Longmont

With a population reaching nearly 100,000, Longmont is expanding its reach between Fort Collins and Boulder on the Front Range. In the shadow of Longs Peak, the city has been called home by residents such as Ed Werder (sports reporter), Kristen Schaal (comedian/ actress) and Pulitzer Prize recipient Elizabeth Fenn.

Pokes Football: Best of Colorado series:

No. 25

No. 24

No. 23

No. 22

No. 21

Pokes Football: Best of Wyoming series

(Cody Tucker and Jared Newland both work for Townsquare Media, which owns 7220sports.com. Kevin McKinney has been a color commentator of Cowboy football for five decades. Ryan Thorburn now works for the University of Wyoming in a sports information role after spending decades in the newspaper industry, most recently at the Casper Star-Tribune. Sally Ann Shurmur, the daughter of former UW football coach Fritz Shurmur, is also a veteran of the newspaper industry, working as a journalist, columnist at the CST for 43 years. She currently writes for Cowboy State Daily.)

- University of Wyoming’s Top 50 Football Players