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Wyoming fires defensive coordinator Chris Tormey

Wyoming's defense has struggled this season and has given up over 30 points per game.

By Jeremy Mauss
Bob Stanton-USA TODAY Sports

The Wyoming Cowboys defense has been the weak link all season, and they have had intermittent success this year, well until the last two games. The Cowboys lost their last two games where they have given up 52 and 51 points each, and for the year they are giving up 31.6 per games.

It was the last two games which forced head coaches Dave Christensen's hand where he has decided to fire Chris Tormey:

"I felt that we needed to make a change at this time to give our football team and the young men on it the best opportunity to win our remaining four regular-season games," Christensen said in a statement. "The last two weeks, our defense has not performed up to the expectations of our coaching staff, our players, nor our fans."

With Tormey out as defensive coordinator, Christensen has promoted first-year defensive line coach Jamar Cain as the new defensive coordinator. Prior to coming to Wyoming Tormey was the defensive line coach from 2009-12 at Cal Poly, so this is a pretty big jump.

There could be a bigger concern with Wyoming's defense and that may start at the top. Wyoming has had many issues with their defense ever since Christensen became the head coach at Wyoming, and could Christensen be next if the team doesn't make it to a bowl game.

The defensive downside could be due to Christensen not recruiting well on the West coast, and of course changing the scheme nearly every season does not help putting a good defense on the field.

Wyoming is off this week before they host Fresno State on Nov. 9, so Cain will have some time to get the defense ready to go up against the best offense they have seen all year.

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