LARAMIE — Few expected the Wyoming Cowboys to hang with the Texas Longhorns, even when new coach Dave Christensen promised a whole new rodeo. But, early victories in the face of a giant kept it interesting for a while.
A sellout crowd of 31,017 watched the No. 2 Longhorns beat the Cowboys 41-10, but it was the tale of two halves that had this game so lopsided.
Small successes strung together were enough to give Wyoming a the lead at one point and trailing by a 10-13 at the half, but the Longhorns everyone expected showed up for the second half.
All the little things such as holding the Longhorns to field goals instead of touchdowns, making the most out of penalties and keeping the first sellout crowd since 2007 at the game kept the team picked last in the Mountain West Conference behind 10-13 at halftime.
“I’m sure they got woken up at halftime,” Christensen said. “I’m sure they weren’t only supposed to be up by three according to their coaching staff.”
After Wyoming true freshmen Luke Ruff was called for roughing the kicker early in the first quarter, his pressure paid off with 1:32 left in half. Ruff blocked punter John Gold’s kick at the 6-yard line and true freshman Ghaali Muhammad took it in for the touchdown giving the Cowboys their only lead, 10-6.
The blocked punt awoke the sleepy Longhorns enough to shake them back into top BCS shape.
The first half Texas tried out fake punts and Colt McCoy tossed a rare interception, but the Longhorns showed their true colors before long with consistent completions and a downhill run game.
McCoy engineered four unanswered second-half touchdown drives to finally give the Texas nation something to cheer for and the national audience at home a push of reality.
McCoy finished 30-of-47 passes for 337 yards and three TDs with an interception. He missed 17 or more passes for just the third time in his career, including a dozen in the first half.
“It is fun when you can win 41-10 and still feel like you have a lot of things to fix,” Texas coach Mack Brown said. “Maybe 7,200 feet is a little different (than other places we have played). I thought it affected us early in the day, but it seemed like we got more used to it.”
Trailing 41-10 in the waning minutes of the game, the same Cowboy defense that kept Wyoming in striking distance couldn’t hold up against the methodical offensive play of the Longhorns. The inability to wrangle McCoy and the lack of big play offense left the Cowboys with a loss to the top ranked team ever to play in Laramie.
Junior college transfer Robert Benjamin took the majority of Wyoming’s snaps, but only managed 53 yards.
