Friday evening the Houston Cougars reached out to Wyoming Cowboys head coach Dave Christensen to become their next head coach, and offered a huge raise around $500,000 per year. Christensen turned down Houston and has reportedly accepted a five-year contract extension with Wyoming. The extension is not official and dollar amount of the extension also is not known at this time. The announcement will likely come shortly after the New Mexico Bowl.
Currently Christensen make $843,000 per year and his current contract has him as the Wyoming coach through 2014. With this new contract, Christensen will be locked into Wyoming through the 2019 season. This extension is very much deserved since Wyoming was expected to not be good this year -- yet alone make a bowl game -- since quarterback Austin Carta-Samuels transferred and Wyoming was starting a true freshman quarterback in Brett Smith. The coaching job Christensen did this year is why he was named the 2011 Mountain West coach of the year.
Christensen was loosely linked to the Kansas Jayhawk opening before they hired Charlie Weis, but this is a good sign for Wyoming football that Christensen is not looking to leave Wyoming at the first opportunity. Odds are that Christensen will not be staying at Wyoming forever, but rather look for the right opening if he was to leave Wyoming.
Follow Mountain West Connection for more news around the clock via twitter, facebook and now google plus.