Jay Sawvel recently announced the arrival of Gary Harrell to his staff, who will be taking over the Cowboys’ running backs’ room for the foreseeable future. Harrell was hired this spring due to the unexpected departure of the previous running backs’ coach, Donnell Kirkwood Jr.
“Coach Harrell really stood out during the interview process with his experience with the position and his overall experience as a coach which includes time as a head coach at his Alma Mater,” Sawvel said in a UW athletics press release. “He is well-respected with a great sense for the game offensively, and we are excited to have him here at the University of Wyoming and excited to get him in the room and out on the field with our team.”
Kirkwood’s surprise exit from the program came just before the opening of spring practices on March 25. A little over a week later Kirkwood was announced as Washington State’s coach at the same position.
This isn’t the first time Washington State has taken a former Cowboy assistant coach to roam their sidelines. Before the hiring of Kirkwood, former Cowboy defensive coordinator Jake Dickert, who served as an assistant coach and coordinator for the Cowboys from 2017 through 2019, was previously the head man at Washington State as recently as a season ago before moving on to be the head coach at Wake Forest for this upcoming season.
Ironically enough, the Cowboys defeated Washington State, 15-14, on their home turf for just their third win of the entire season in the regular season finale for both teams.
It may be even more ironic that Harrell was hired from Colorado, where he served as the running backs coach under Deion Sanders, a team the Cowboys will be playing on the road in their non-conference slate on September 20.
Harrell also served as a running backs coach for the likes of Jackson State, Alabama State and Florida Atlantic. Harrell also possesses some head coaching experience from his time at the helm of his alma mater, Howard University.
However, there hasn’t been a place that’s quite given him the same sort of first impression that Wyoming gave him when he first arrived on campus.
“When I came, I didn’t really expect to see what I saw. I didn’t expect to feel what I felt as far as culture, the people,” Harrell said.
“The biggest thing I realized from day one is that there’s no foolishness. It’s football. The players, the coaches, they love football. It’s all about football.”
Harrell will have his hands full not only in learning an entirely foreign offensive playbook but molding a group of relatively inexperienced and young backs. The Cowboys brought back little ground production from a season ago, only returning running back Sam Scott, who led an injury-depleted running backs’ room a season ago with 435 yards on 92 carries. Scott has missed the entirety of spring practice thus far due to an injury.
Instead, Harrell has had to lean on the likes of Charlotte transfer Terron Kellman and a pair of redshirt freshmen, Nico Hamilton and Dontae Burch. While Kellman did contribute 242 yards on 48 carries a season ago at Charlotte, both Hamilton and Burch didn’t play a single snap a season ago.
“I know there’s some talent in the room that I got to pull out,” Harrell said.
The Cowboys will also be in the market for another back, as the spring transfer period recently opened on April 16.
“We want to find a guy that can be an all-down back,” Harrel added.
For a running backs’ room that was known for its consistency and tenacity under Craig Bohl–see that Gordie Haug was the running backs coach for six years before the shift to Harrell, and the fact that the Cowboys almost always had an experienced or developed back in their backfield–they’ll have to redefine themselves this year amidst a room full of all around youth and inexperience.
But, for a group that ranked 88th in rushing offense, change might very well be quite welcome.
