Air Force Academy
Read between the lines of the scoreboard, and there’s growing evidence the best college football team from Colorado just might be Cowboys.
Wyoming came riding across the border Saturday and stole a 29-28
victory from Air Force.
It was an inside job.
No fewer than a dozen of the top 25 players on Wyoming’s roster were born and raised in Colorado.
“I always pick on Corey Bramlet, our quarterback, who’s from Wheatland, Wyoming. I tell him Wyoming isn’t really a state. It’s just a suburb of Denver. And we’re slowly taking over,” said senior defensive end John Flora, a Colorado native who grew up to be a Cowboy.
Anybody who wants to see young Colorado football players make good must look only as far as the Wyoming team bus.
As many of Colorado’s blue-chip prospects sign on with football factories across the United States, too often CU and CSU make the mistake of thinking second-tier local prep stars lack the right stuff to win against the nation’s elite.
As anybody who has ever driven Highway 287 through a blizzard knows, accepting a scholarship from Wyoming can be a tough road to football glory. But, contrary to the snobbish put-downs of urbane sophisticates, Laramie is not stuck somewhere between nowhere and the 1800s of
Wild Bill Cody.
“I always wondered if they had paved streets in Wyoming. Or if I had to buy a horse, instead of a car,” Flora joked. “But I’m glad I went. I love Wyoming.”
How ‘Pokes receiver Jovon Bouknight grew into the most dangerous offensive player in the Mountain West Conference concisely tells the tale of how preps unwanted by Colorado colleges have turned Wyoming into a legitimate contender for the league championship.
Before his senior year at Manual High School, Bouknight attended a summer football camp at CU and dreamed big, until he was asked to bench press 185 pounds, which felt like the heftiest rock in Boulder.
“I got under that bench press, and I lifted the bar maybe two times. It wasn’t good,” recalled Bouknight, laughing. “After that, I didn’t receive another piece of recruiting mail from CU.”
When Bouknight soon attends the NFL combine as a bona fide pro prospect, he will repeatedly pump 225 pounds from his chest at least 14 times. “I done come a long way,” Bouknight said.
Colorado is blessed with fine football minds. Coaches Fisher DeBerry, Sonny Lubick and Gary Barnett have given fans happy reasons to tear down goal posts on Saturday afternoons in the fall.
But no coach within a three-
hour drive from Denver is currently a hotter commodity than Joe Glenn. With college presidents from across the USA willing to pay big for football success, how long can the Cowboys keep him down on the ranch?
“This is the big-time,” insisted Glenn, infectiously excited to be wherever he’s at, which explains his past success with programs far off ESPN’s radar. While winning national titles at Northern Colorado and Montana, Glenn did not gripe the trophies were not shiny enough to see his smile.
“Since Coach Glenn has been in Wyoming, he has bled Cowboy,” Bouknight said. “Cowboy is him.”
Glenn is the rare 56-year-old man who never has learned cynicism. Somehow, he habitually speaks in exclamation points without sounding hokey.
“I told our fans to get their fannies off the couch and come down to Colorado Springs!” shouted Glenn, soaking up the cheers of happy fans. “There must be half of Laramie here! At least!”
After a quarterback sneak by Bramlet capped a dramatic 65-yard drive to the tying touchdown and winning extra point with 1 minute, 25 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, Glenn unabashedly wore tears in his eyes as his Cowboys celebrated by dashing to the stadium corner where most Wyoming supporters had purchased seats.
“I had 18 requests for tickets,” said Flora, raised in Arvada. “And I could only come up with seven. But everybody got here to watch me play.”
So very many players who grew up in Colorado raised voices with friends and family in the same victory cry, chanting: “W-Y-O! W-Y-O! W-Y-O!”
What do you think about that, hoss?
