Last year, the Wyoming coaching staff capitalized on a big bowl game victory to produce a quality recruiting class. This year, the coaches took advantage of their two years of experience to overcome a disastrous, season-ending collapse.
“In all fairness, only time and the scoreboard will tell,” Cowboys coach Joe Glenn said of Wednesday’s 25-member signing class. “But I think we just keep getting better and better (at recruiting). We’ve been at it three years now, so I think we have a better understanding of who we are and the kind of athlete we can get.
“We got some big guys, we got some tough guys, we got some real fast guys, some really talented guys.”
The Cowboys signed seven players from Colorado. The most prominent among them are Cherry Creek place-kicker Aric Goodman, Gateway wide receiver Greg Bolling and running back Darius Terry of Colorado Springs Sierra.
Bolling, who played quarterback and safety as a senior, is drawing comparisons from Wyoming coaches to Jovon Bouknight, the former Manual High School quarterback who became a record-setting Cowboys wide receiver. Bouknight is expected to be a first-day selection in the NFL draft.
“If he comes in and plays like Jovon (as a freshman), it’ll be a miracle,” Glenn said. “But if you watch the tapes, there’s some similarities there. Their families even work together in a business. And he has a presence a lot like Jovon, so I’m real excited about the guy.”
Terry missed four games with a broken jaw last season, then came back to rush for 800 yards and eight touchdowns in the last three games of the season.
“He might be the sleeper,” Glenn said. “Darius is a guy that can run 4.49 (seconds in the 40-yard dash) and is 196 pounds right now, a tough kid with a 3.5 (grade-point average).”
But with place-kicker Deric Yaussi and punter Adam Brooks having completed their eligibility, Glenn said the player who has the best chance to contribute as a freshman is Goodman.
Wyoming signed 15 high- schoolers – including quarterback/safety Chris Prosinski, the Wyoming high school offensive player of the year, from Buffalo.
The most intriguing of the four junior college players who signed might be quarterback Ian Hetrick, who led Santa Rosa (Calif.) to an 8-3 record and a bowl victory last season. He averaged 404.1 yards passing a game, best in the state.
Quarterback Corey Bramlet was a senior this past season, so Glenn said the quarterback competition will be wide open.
“We’ve got a battle at quarterback,” Glenn said. “Hetrick brings in some big numbers, as does Steven Headley (from Grapevine, Texas), and we’ve got three guys on campus, so we’re going to see a big-time battle.”
As for the overall recruiting effort, Glenn said: “I can assure you we’ve given it our best shot. We’ve turned over a lot of stones and gone to the four corners to find the best players we could get. We usually have a quota at each position, and we more or less met our quotas.”
Joseph Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-5458 or jsanchez@denverpost.com.
