2005 Week 12

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - Despite a 16 minute advantage in time of possession, Wyoming struggled to move the ball when they got into in Utah territory and could not prevent the big plays at the end, losing to Utah 24 - 28 Saturday night.

"This one reminds me a bit of the last couple years," a frustrated Joe Glenn told reporters following the game.

"Not so much in that we held the ball all game, because we weren't always able to do that, but in that we passed up scoring opportunities, maybe a half dozen of them, couldn't take advantage of the other team's mistakes, and couldn't stop the big play when we really needed to."

At times, Wyoming did indeed look strangely reminiscent of the Cowboy teams of old. They moved the ball well on their side of the field, but struggled to get inside Utah's 30 yard line. The Cowboys attempted five fourth down conversions, four of them between the 28 and 35 yard lines of Utah. Only once did the Cowboys need more than three yards, but they failed to convert on all five attempts. Utah turned the ball over four times, but Wyoming managed only ten points.

For their part, Utah never did get into the red zone, but it turned out not to matter. All three of Utah's offensive scores came from at least 25 yards out, including the game winner, a 67 yard bomb on third and 13 with only 2:47 left in the game. The Utes also returned an interception for a touchdown in the second quarter.

"Honestly, I think our bye came at a bad time this year. Previously, we were happy to rest up after the loss to Colorado State. This year, however, we had a great deal of momentum coming off that big win, and we seemed to lose most of that over the course of two weeks. The bottom line is we didn't get the job done today. We never found the killer instinct to finish off drives that would have put the game out of reach, and it came back to haunt us."

With the loss, Wyoming falls to 7 - 3 on the year and 4 - 1 in the Mountain West. If the season were to end today, the Cowboys, as the second place team in the conference, would receive their first bowl bid of the millennium, a spot in the Las Vegas bowl against the number five team from the Pac 10. Wyoming finishes the regular season with home games versus New Mexico and UNLV.