October 8, 2005: TCU 28, Wyoming 14
"Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders."
The radiant sunlight splashed Jonah Field with a little extra shimmer on this particular Saturday. Fans clamored into upper corner regions of War Memorial Stadium that had sat vacant for nearly an entire decade, and a distinct buzz circulated between people who had traveled from all over the state for this particular game. This wasn't a novelty aura - as Wyoming fans would experience when the Cowboys would host Texas and Nebraska years later - it was the aura of a college football Saturday with genuine, real significance. A game - in Laramie, Wyoming - that truly mattered. Cowboy fans had craved the sensation since 1998, and it was evident by an early-arriving crowd that dwarfed any that had attended a Wyoming home game in the 21st century.
But as the pomp and circumstance of authentic college football pulsated at 7,200 feet, an unfamiliar newcomer began to take the field. No, this was not a complete stranger - the Cowboys and Horned Frogs had tangled before in the 1990's - but this incarnation of Fort Worth football was something much different. Something ominous. The purple and white uniforms seemed innocuous enough - and the small, but boisterous cheering section in the southwest corner of the end zone seemed like mere bystanders - but something was clearly altered about these Horned Frogs. And, as the crowd of 28,000 stood and roared out its kickoff cadence, it was almost instantly evident that this would be no ordinary day - or football game - for either program.
The Build-Up: A Mountain West Newcomer
To truly frame the story of the 2005 Wyoming/TCU game, it's important - interestingly enough - to first tell the Horned Frogs' side. TCU played Wyoming in 1998 and fell, 34-27, to a Cowboys team that started the season 8-1 before losing its final two games of the year. While TCU touted a long, storied football history - with Sammy Baugh as its crowning jewel - the Horned Frogs were largely reduced to college football irrelevance by the time the teams met in 1998. On the heels of a disastrous 1-10 campaign in 1997, TCU hired Dennis Franchione as its head coach...and by the 1998 meeting, the Horned Frogs were on the rise again.
Despite losing to Wyoming and finishing the season with a 6-5 record (compared to Wyoming's 8-3 mark), the Horned Frogs were given a bowl bid (and Wyoming was, for the second time in three seasons, criminally left out in the cold)...and TCU cashed in by defeating USC in the Sun Bowl. The following season, led by a running back named LaDanian Tomlinson, TCU jumped to an 8-4 mark and, once again, won a bowl game - this time over East Carolina. Finally, in 2000, Franchione and Tomlinson guided the Horned Frogs to one of their best seasons, at the time, in program history - a 10-2 campaign that saw TCU rise as high as #9 in the national rankings.
Franchione left at the conclusion of that season, however, and TCU quickly plummeted back to earth the following season. Under new head coach Gary Patterson, TCU mustered a respectable, albeit depreciated 6-6 record. In 2002, the Horned Frogs were back, earning a 10-2 mark in the Conference USA and pummeling MWC representative CSU in the Liberty Bowl. 2003 saw more of the same, as the Horned Frogs jumped to an 11-2 mark in a magical season that ended in disappointment with a 34-31 loss to another upstart, Boise State, in the Fort Worth Bowl. At this juncture, TCU had earned three 10+ win seasons in the first four years of the decade, and was very much established as a "mid-major" power.
2004, however, saw the Frogs take another step backwards. TCU recorded its first losing campaign since 1997, a 5-6 mark, and bolted for the Mountain West Conference at the conclusion of the season. While the Horned Frogs were leaving a Conference USA that boasted 11-1 Louisville, the MWC was even better: Utah concluded 2004 unbeaten and, by some accounts, an under-respected contender that should have received national title votes.
In any case, TCU entered the Mountain West Conference in 2005 with an aura of uncertainty surrounding just where the Horned Frogs would stand in the hierarchy of arguably the strongest "little" conference in America. Those questions were immediately answered in week one, as TCU stunned #7 Oklahoma - and silenced its running back, Adrian Peterson - with a 17-10 win in the season opener. The following week, however, was even more shocking...as TCU stumbled against lowly SMU in its home opener, crashing back to earth immediately after recording its biggest win in recent program history.
From there, the Horned Frogs eked out a pair of overtime thrillers over Utah and BYU - then pasted New Mexico - and entered Laramie not only with a 4-1 mark, but as the new prohibitive favorites to win the conference. That is, of course, if they could slow down the most confident Cowboy team in nearly a decade.
TCU record entering Wyoming game:
at Oklahoma: W 17-10
at SMU: L 10-21
vs. Utah: W 23-20 (OT)
at BYU: W 51-50 (OT)
vs. New Mexico: W 49-28
The Build-Up: Bo and the 'Boys
That Wyoming team rolled into the October 8 showdown on a wave of momentum that reached Snowy Range heights, and only appeared to be growing. Not only were the Cowboys - under third-year head coach Joe Glenn - entering the game on the heels of their first bowl victory since the 1960's...they were riding a 4-1 record during which they had played like the Top 25 team they had been billed as in the preseason. While Wyoming fell at the Swamp in its opener against #10 Florida, the Cowboys kept the game respectable and walked away confidently. That confidence was reflected in a blowout victory over Louisiana Monroe in Wyoming's home opener, followed by a clutch, last-second win at Air Force - a venue where Wyoming had historically struggled.
Most impressive, however, was the pair of drubbings the Cowboys put on Ole Miss and UNLV in the successive weeks. The Cowboys buried Ole Miss on the Rebels' home turf, earning a series sweep over their SEC foes, and then pummeled the Rebels unlike Wyoming had ever done to a MWC foe (a 42-3 fourth quarter lead).
Entering the TCU game, senior quarterback Corey Bramlet had thrown for 7 touchdowns and 4 interceptions in 2005. However, it was the command he showed in his most recent performances, particularly a 21-27 effort for 315 yards and 3 touchdowns against UNLV, that had Cowboy fans riding high on #14. Glenn was garnering a reputation as something of a coaching virtuoso, adding the sweep of Ole Miss to his resume that also included wins over BYU and CSU in his first season and, of course, the bowl win over UCLA. Wyoming's defense earned national respect after swallowing up Ole Miss's entire offensive attack.
And then there was Bo. Unlike anyone who has donned the brown and gold in the 2000's, Jovon Bouknight was a special kind of playmaker for Wyoming. No one who preceded him, or succeeded him, quite captured lightning in a bottle at the collegiate level quite like Bo - not Ryan McGuffey, not John Wendling, not Devin Moore, not Brett Smith. Bo was something else. While Malcom Floyd and Tashaun Gipson obviously possessed much greater talents at the next level, Bouknight still holds the title as the most dynamic Cowboy of the 21st century. He carried himself with a different level of swagger - and he roused a sense of belief in his teammates because, quite simply, when a situation called for a playmaker, Bo somehow found a way.
Entering the TCU game, Bouknight had posted 24 catches for 393 yards and 6 touchdowns. He had caught at least one touchdown in every single game of the season. And his latest performance, a 7 catch, 116-yard, 2 touchdown masterpiece against UNLV, was one of his best to date. Bougknight entered the TCU game on the doorstep of passing the legendary Marcus Harris for Wyoming's all-time all-purpose yardage mark.
Wyoming's record entering the TCU game:
at Florida: L 14-32
vs. Louisiana Monroe: W 38-0
at Air Force: W 29-28
at Ole Miss: W 24-14
vs. UNLV: W 42-17
