Brian Hill rushed for 76 yards on a tough night in Boise against the Broncos. The Cowboys had a struggle to get any offense going against the Mountain West’s top defense. (Photo via Michael Smith, UW)

Coming into the game at Boise State the Cowboys were hoping to break a nine game losing streak to the Broncos. This was not the night it was going to happen. The Pokes, now 1-7 on the season, 1-3 in conference play, were unable to get a lot of traction offensively or defensively against Boise State.

The Broncos got off to a quick start scoring on their first drive, a pass from freshman Brett Rypien to Thomas Sperbeck for a 13 yard score. The Broncos would follow that up with a field go to up 10-0 on their first two drives.

The Cowboys would toss an interception and Boise would convert that into a one play drive and a touchdown go to up 17-0. The Cowboys would punt again and Boise would march off a 15 play drive for another score to go up 24-0. In case you hadn’t noticed a trend here, that’s bad.

Wyoming would finally get on the board with Cameron Coffman hitting Jake Maulhardt for a 15 yard score to breathe some life into the Cowboy offense.

That didn’t really stop Boise, because they kept on scoring. Boise would go on to punch in another touchdown and field goal to take a 34-7 lead into the 4^th quarter.

During the third quarter senior quarterback Cameron Coffman was injured and was taken to the locker room for further treatment. Nick Smith was brought into the game to replace him. With an injury to Tanner Gentry already the Cowboys could least afford Coffman going down.

Nick Smith brought the rushing attack to the game as he scrambled for a 4^th quarter touchdown on the Boise defense to close the gap to 34-14. Scoring this late in the game was basically just for style points because the game was over long before this.

The Cowboys held Boise’s offense in check for the most part, but running back Joe McNichols still had a big night for the Broncos. He constantly gashed the Wyoming defensive line and forced them into missing a lot of tackles. He finished the night with 166 yards and a score. He added another 36 yards receiving and a touchdown as well.

Cameron Coffman finished the night 8/13 for 70 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. Brian Hill, the talented sophomore running back from Belleview, IL finished with 76 yards on the night. He added another 26 yards receiving. Brian Hill eclipsed the 1000 yard mark for rushing in a season, the quickest a Cowboy has ever gotten to 1000 yards.

DJ May led the Cowboys in tackles with 14. Following him was Andrew Wingard with 11 tackles, the fourth time this season he has recorded double-digit tackles.

The Pokes passing game was nearly non-existent when split between the two quarterbacks, you have to think part of this is due to Tanner Gentry’s absence, and Boise State’s relentless pass rush. The Broncos found themselves in the backfield all night long against this inexperience Cowboy offensive line.

For the fourth consecutive week the Cowboys did manage to cover the spread, which was 34 points before the game started.

The Cowboys finished with 233 total offensive yards, while giving up 418 to Boise State. The Pokes were penalized five times for 35 yards, including two false starts on a punt in the first quarter.

The Pokes will face Utah State next Friday night in Logan, an 8:15pm MT kickoff. They will be playing for Jim Bridger’s Rifle, which is currently located in Logan. The game can be seen on ESPN2.