Cowboys' bowl hopes comes down to regular-season finale

LARAMIE – Three down and one to go.

That’s the mentality of the University of Wyoming football team as it heads into its regular-season finale Saturday at New Mexico. The Cowboys (5-6 overall, 3-4 Mountain West) have won three consecutive games after their 35-27 come-from-behind victory over Air Force this past Saturday at War Memorial Stadium.

They need to make it four if they want to get bowl eligible.

UW has not played in three consecutive bowl games in school history.

“We’re 3-0 in one-game playoffs,” senior strong safety Andrew Wingard said. “We really want to go to a bowl game.”

Even if UW wins at 3-8 New Mexico, which has lost six straight games, there is no guarantee it will get a bowl berth. The MW has ties to five bowls this season, and it has six bowl-eligible teams: No. 14-ranked Utah State, No. 21 Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Nevada and Hawaii. All of those teams will have more victories than UW, even if the Cowboys get their sixth win.

Two websites that do bowl projections have UW going bowling: CollegeFootballNews.com has the Cowboys in the First Responder Bowl against North Texas on Dec. 26 in Dallas. That bowl doesn’t have a MW tie. The projection is based off the Big Ten and Big XII conferences not having bowl-eligible teams to fill that slot. NJ.com has UW playing Marshall in the Arizona Bowl on Dec. 29 in Tucson.

Comeback kids

UW trailed Air Force by 13 points with 8 minutes, 44 seconds remaining. It was the largest deficit it has rallied from and won this season.

UW also did something not-so-good and still won – allowing two 100-yard rushers.

“If anybody doesn’t believe the Cowboys aren’t Cowboy Tough, that should be our statement right there,” said junior wide receiver Austin Conway, who caught a 22-yard touchdown pass with 1:09 remaining to give UW a 28-27 lead.

“Things weren’t going our way but we didn’t quit, we didn’t cry about it. We just continued to play and good things started to happen for us.”

Getting offensive

UW recorded a season high in points and touchdowns (five) against Air Force. It also threw for a season-best 262 yards.

The Cowboys entered the game as one of the worst teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision in third-down conversion percentage at 32.9. They were a season-best 8 of 13 (62 percent) against Air Force.

Three for 300

With eight tackles against Air Force, junior middle linebacker Logan Wilson has 305 in his career.

Wilson joins Wingard (449) and senior free safety Marcus Epps (321) as current players with 300-plus tackles.

Road trifecta

UW will try to do something Saturday at New Mexico hasn’t accomplished since Bohl has been its coach – win three road games during the same season.

The Cowboys won two road games in each of the past two seasons.

Robert Gagliardi is the WyoSports senior editor. He can be reached at [email protected] or 307-755-3325. Follow him on Twitter at @rpgagliardi.