Riding for the brand

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - Logan Harris became the first face of Wyoming football's 2017 recruiting class when he verbally committed to play for the Cowboys.

He was an appropriate choice.

Assuming Harris, a lineman from Torrington, signs with Wyoming next year, he will continue head coach Craig Bohl's streak of giving at least one scholarship to an in-state player in each of his recruiting classes at Wyoming.

"The high school coaches (in Wyoming) have really become great assets for us," Bohl said. "... A lot of them have been real positive saying, 'Hey, for years we complained that, you know what, we never got any attention by the University of Wyoming. That's changed now.' And so I think that that brand is beginning to spread."

In 2014, Bohl's first recruiting class at Wyoming included Austin Fort, a quarterback out of Gillette. Fort redshirted as a freshman and then transferred to Chabot College, a community college in California, after being moved to tight end. He returned to Wyoming as a walk-on earlier this year.

The Cowboys' 2015 class included Natrona products Josh Harshman and Logan Wilson. Harshman appeared in 11 games at tight end as a true freshman and scored on a 26-yard reception against New Mexico. Wilson redshirted last year but ended the spring atop the Cowboys' depth chart at weakside linebacker.

This year's class brought in Gillette fullback Zach Taylor and Theo Dawson, a Jackson running back who will join the Cowboys after a two-year mission with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Now, Harris is continuing the trend.

"It makes the state of Wyoming more excited to watch football," Harris told the Casper Star-Tribune, "because they actually know who's on the team and representing the gold and brown."

Under Bohl, there have been plenty of in-state walk-ons, too, and another batch arrived in Laramie with the 2016 class. But a sizable number of Wyoming walk-ons leave the team.

On the scholarship side of things, the Cowboys place an importance on finding players who will take pride in playing for their home state.

"Well, Coach (Bohl) always says it," director of recruiting Gordie Haug said. "When we first got here, there were a bunch of guys that were playing at the University of Wyoming, and we're looking for kids that are playing for the University of Wyoming.

"And I think that's the biggest thing. You're a homestate kid, and you've been born (into) and following Cowboy football, and you've always wanted to be a part of it. I think it changes your locker room, number one. And that's something that we've had to do. It's been a hard task, but I think we're getting there with more and more close-knit kids that really believe that we can do something special here."

At the moment, Gillette's Lane Tucker looks to be the only other in-state recruit with a 2017 offer from the Cowboys.

Haug said recruiting Wyoming players is often an exercise in patience, and the team prefers to see Cowboy state players in camp before giving out an offer - unless, like Tucker, they are getting poached by other schools. The Gillette defensive end has offers from six other schools, including New Mexico.

Harris received his offer after participating in Wyoming's on-campus camp last weekend.

"Just watching his tape, we felt like (Harris) was an offer off of tape, but he was coming to camp anyway, so we might as well wait and make sure that we verify everything that we need to verify," Haug said. "So that's kind of the process. It's all about recruitability. Does he have other offers or does he have nothing? What's going on? And that's kind of how our process is around here in the home states."

Home states?

That's right. In addition to Wyoming, the Cowboys consider Nebraska and Colorado can't-miss areas of recruiting. Haug believes the same type of pride can be instilled in those players, even if Wyoming isn't actually technically their home school.

"I think all those three states are pretty blue collar," he said. "The Nebraska kids are going to be pissed because they didn't get an offer from Nebraska. So they're going to do everything they can to be the best football player they can at Wyoming. Colorado, same thing. They didn't get offered by CU, or CSU, for that fact. So I mean, it's kind of the same thing.

"... Obviously it's sometimes harder than it is easier, but we'll continue to fight for those kids, and hopefully they like what we provide in our message and our school and the type of team that we're going to put out on the field every Saturday."

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Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, http://www.trib.com