LARAMIE — Spring football is always interesting from a personnel standpoint.
Who’s bigger, who’s faster, who’s stronger, who’s moving to a new position, what do the redshirt freshmen look like, etc.
The University of Wyoming’s spring practice, which gets underway March 5, went from interesting to very interesting last week when starting quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels notified Cowboys coach Dave Christensen in a text message that he was leaving school.
Carta-Samuels’ sudden departure left Wyoming, which went 3-9 last season, incredibly thin at that key position.
Now it figures to be a big job replacing Carta-Samuels, who was the Mountain West Conference freshman of the year in 2009 before becoming only the second sophomore in Wyoming football history to be elected a team captain in 2010.
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Carta-Samuels played in 24 games, including 21 as the starter, in his two-year Cowboys career.
In those two seasons, he completed 345-of-578 passes (59.7 percent) for 3,655 yards, with 19 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. He also rushed 259 times for 758 yards and six more scores.
So the Cowboys go into spring practice with redshirt freshman Emory Miller Jr. and true freshman Brett Smith (already enrolled for the spring semester) at the top of the QB depth chart.
Wyoming had two other redshirt quarterback prospects on the fall roster — Sam Stratton from Chatfield High School and Austin Woodward, a preferred walk-on from Sheridan (Wyo.) — but Christensen said they would be moved to other positions this spring. Stratton will be a running back, and Woodward will be a linebacker.
Miller, who is from Horn High School in Mesquite, Texas, was a part of Wyoming’s 2010 recruiting class. He spent last fall as a scout-team quarterback and was listed No. 3 on the depth chart behind Carta-Samuels and senior Dax Crum.
Smith was one of the top prep quarterback prospects in Oregon this past fall. He graduated from West Salem High School early and enrolled at Wyoming this month.
Miller and Smith certainly have the high school credentials as dual-threat quarterbacks.
The two combined for 14,047 yards in total offense and 159 touchdowns during their prep careers.
But that was high school.
“The guys we have battling at the quarterback position don’t have any experience in the college game, so I don’t have any more to comment on until I have the chance to watch them perform,” Christensen said.
Christensen did say a third quarterback would be added to the mix in the fall from his current recruiting class.
Christensen, who came to Wyoming as a guru of the spread offense, modified the spread at times last season by reducing the splits in the offensive line and putting an H-back on the field.
The third-year Cowboys coach said even though he is dedicated to the spread offense, he and his staff would complete their current recruiting class and then talk about any adjustments that could be made.
“We’ll research that once the recruiting is over, but we’re always looking to do things better,” he said.
“I don’t anticipate any wholesale changes. We’ll evaluate everything we did this past year and identify strength and weaknesses in personnel and make adjustments accordingly.”
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