Laramie – A new conference rival. Two high-scoring teams at the top of the Mountain West Conference standings. A forecast that calls for sunny skies on a crisp autumn day.
Saturday’s game between TCU (4-1, 3-0) and Wyoming (4-1, 2-0) has all the makings of a classic college football game.
“I expect it to be sold out. You have two 4-and-1 teams that are undefeated in conference,” TCU coach Gary Patterson said.
“I’ll be disappointed if it isn’t sold out.”
More than likely, he’ll be disappointed.
Despite the weather, despite the matchup that pits the league’s top two teams against each other, with the winner assuming the driver’s seat in the conference championship race, Wyoming assistant athletics director Tim Harkins said the game wasn’t likely to sell out.
Harkins said he expected a strong turnout – 20,000 or more – for the TCU game.
But with a seating capacity of 32,580 – that’s room for the entire city of Laramie, with a few thousand seats to spare – War Memorial Stadium has sold out only twice in school history. Two previous home games this year drew a combined 38,187 fans, including just 18,022 for last week’s 42-17 rout of UNLV.
“We’ve got to get our crowd into it, to where they can’t hear their signals on the offensive line of scrimmage, and they maybe have to use some silent signals,” Cowboys coach Joe Glenn said.
“We’ve got some things working for us, but the ‘Poke fans have got to help us.”
But the ‘Poke fans can’t do anything about Aaron Brown, the tailback who’s averaging 8.2 yards per carry for TCU.
“It’s a guy that doesn’t even start, if you can believe that,” Glenn said of Brown. “No. 23 is the best player I’ve seen on any teams that we’ve played. Every time he touches the ball it’s about a first down.”
Saturday’s winner gets a leg up in the race for the Mountain West Conference title. But both coaches said the conference championship was a long way off, and they needed to stay focused on Saturday’s game.
“We would say that the winner of this game would be in the driver’s seat, looking in the rearview mirror,” Glenn said. “TCU has had Utah and they’ve had BYU.
“But I’m trying to figure out where you’re going to get an easy game. I don’t think this means the winner is the conference champ. They may have an edge, but I said at the start of the year it wouldn’t fake me out if the winner of the conference had two losses.”
