Wyoming Football: Transition to Bohl Era in High Gear as Young Players Impress

One never knows what is said to a recruit when a new head coach is sitting in their living room, but it appears HC Craig  Bohl is a man of his word. When asked about some of his goals for fall camp he replied,

"(An)important part of this fall camp will be identifying which of our freshmen can come in and contribute, because this year, more so than many years, we may have a number of freshman playing," Bohl said. "How we go about determining which freshman are going to play and what role they are going to play is going to have a significant impact on our football team."

A man of his word, indeed. Upwards of 10 inherited players have left the Wyoming program since Spring. By many accounts this is the result of an emphasis of a change in culture, possibly the process of the new coaching staff imposing their will on a crop of student athletes that have not been overly successful. Whatever the impetus, Bohl has been.

"Pleasantly surprised with the number of freshman that are integrated into those 2 deeps (depth chart). We had high expectations of this class coming in, they exceeded our expectations when they came to camp," he said. "Its a little bit of indication of a full recruiting cycle, plus its an indication of a a lack of depth in our program."

Often, when referring to last year's 4-8 results, one can hear the frustration in Bohl's answers. He doesn't --yet-- have "his" guys in place, and is willing to be quite frank about his disappointment in last year's squad. For example, when asked  about the progress of the fullback position he says that "We are certainly light years ahead of where we were last year, they're more confident in some of the base running plays that we have... they're executing well."

Regarding his teams condition after a grueling series of summer work outs, Bohl had a similarly divided reaction.

"Condition wise I think were OK. What wer'e not OK with is our discipline," the coach said. "We've worked really hard, guys are in good shape. It's not like we had a lot of guys cramping up and things like that, but we gotta get the snap count, make sure we're not line up int he neutral zone. That had nothing to do with our conditioning, the (physical) conditioning we're alright." but adds, while pointing to his neck, "Condition of the head: not so much."