114 yards.
That’s all the offense the Wyoming Cowboy football team was able to muster in the first half of their matchup against the Colorado Buffaloes.
Feeling a little bit of deja vu?
That’s because the Cowboys were stalled similarly against fellow Big 12 opponent Utah just a week earlier, where they only were able to scrounge together a measly 78 yards in the opening half of that one.
A field goal was the only points on the board through the opening half of play for the Cowboys, while the Buffaloes had their way offensively in the first half, as the Cowboy secondary in particular struggled to stay in lock step with the Buffaloes’ wideouts. The Buffaloes held onto a 21-3 lead heading into the break–a lead they quickly extended as quarterback Kaidon Salter sailed a pass over two members of the Cowboy secondary and Joseph Williams delivered on a 47-yard touchdown play which gave the Buffaloes a 28-3 lead.
As a previous defensive coordinator, Wyoming head coach Jay Sawvel was none too pleased with his defense’s effort tonight.
“Basically, though, we played like crap on defense,” Sawvel bluntly stated postgame. “Let’s just be honest in the fact that there were certain things that, you know, we needed to have a better performance defensively than what we had tonight.”
To their credit, the Cowboys’ offense did begin to pick up their performance in the second half, as quarterback Kaden Anderson answered quickly to the Buffaloes’ opening second half scoring drive, throwing a dart to wideout Eric Richardson for a 41-yard touchdown pass.
Yessir, 2. pic.twitter.com/RESyR6deDO
— Wyoming Cowboy Football (@wyo_football) September 21, 2025
That looked to be the spark that would begin a momentous comeback from the Cowboys on the road–as the defense proceeded to force their first three-and-out of the contest shortly after and the offense picked up right where they left off.
Anderson found Chris Durr Jr. for 32 yards for, surprisingly, the first time of the night on the following drive and tight end Evan Svoboda helped under center to convert a pair of crucial third downs as the Cowboys scored another field goal to make it a 13-28 game.
Suddenly, a game that felt like the makings of a massive blowout was just a two-score game
The Buffaloes we’re driving once again, though, as running back Micah Welsh bursted to the second level and looked to be on a path to the end zone for a gut punch of a score to halt the Cowboy comeback–that was until cornerback Dainsus Miller got a paw on the ball, punching it out for Justin Taylor to scoop up at their own one-yard line.
While the turnover itself was a big play, the position it left the offense in was less than desirable. Backed up into his own end zone on third down, Anderson was left with no choice but to take a safety as the pocket quickly collapsed on him.
Despite leading a seven minute scoring drive late in the fourth quarter to make up for that lost ground, Anderson and this Cowboys’ offensive unit were buried too deep to complete the comeback they had teased throughout most of the second half, as they ultimately dropped the contest by a score of 37-20.
“I just think that we kept at it, and then all of a sudden got some confidence and rhythm,” Sawvel said. “We were out of rhythm in the first half in large part, because, I think that there was a press that happened too, you know that all of a sudden you got down 14 to three and it’s, okay, now we got to start pressing.”
While the Cowboys aren’t the type of team to relish in moral victories, their stick-to-it-iveness despite the large point margin after halftime is something to be commended
“We just stayed the course, kept fighting, and at the end of the day, when you’re in that situation, that’s what matters most, is that you’re going to keep fighting and fight to win,” senior center Jack Walsh said.
“I was proud of my teammates.”
The quarterback carousel for the Buffaloes through their opening three games of the season was a real question mark heading into the contest. After the way Kaidon Salter carved up the Cowboy defense tonight, there should be no doubt who should be starting under center for the Buffaloes.
The Cowboys struggled immensely to wrangle Salter despite breaching into the backfield on multiple occasions. Salter finished with 86 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown, as well as 304 yards through the air and three touchdown passes with no interceptions.
He was certainly the difference maker that got the Buffaloes a win tonight.
“It was very frustrating,” Miller said of Salter’s performance. “Like, we covering, I’m covering, so as I’m guarding him, he’s still running left, right, back and forth.”
Freshman running back Samuel “Tote” Harris was certainly a difference maker for the Cowboys, as the young prodigy was again extremely productive against a Big 12 defense, finishing for 126 yards on 19 carries. That performance was the first time since 2019 a freshman had rushed for 100 plus yards in a single game, when Titus Swen did so against UNLV.
“He’s our starting tailback right now, right?” Sawvel said of Harris. “And you watch him play and you can see why the guy’s going to be a really good football player.”
Still, the Cowboys are going to need more from the rest of this team as a unit if they want to find success in the Mountain West conference.
After losing every coin toss this season and having to start every game on offense, there’s no doubt that starting with more pace–and points–will be a big focus heading into the first conference matchup of the year against undefeated UNLV.
Despite the two losses heading into that pivotal matchup against UNLV, playing in the Big 12 for two weeks–as Walsh described it–has brought upon valuable, yet hard lessons for this team to learn heading into league play.
“We played some really great teams, and those games are going to do nothing but make you better,” Walsh said.
