Wyoming's pass defense hopes to cut back on big plays

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - Wyoming's pass defense would like to put last week's game at Nebraska behind it.

The Cowboys, who lost 52-17, allowed 412 yards of passing to Nebraska. That's more yards than the Cornhuskers passed for in any game last season and more than the Cowboys allowed in any 2015 game.

Five Nebraska receivers had a catch of 35 or more yards Saturday. Jordan Westerkamp and Alonzo Moore each had more than 100 yards receiving for Nebraska, despite the fact that they combined for seven total receptions. Seven Huskers passes went for 28 or more yards.

Some of that was a matter of Nebraska simply having a very talented receiving corps.

"We've got to give credit to our opponents, too," Craig Bohl said. "There's some playmaking ability that comes into play."

Cornerback Antonio Hull felt the Huskers' receivers lived up to the hype, though he didn't sense Wyoming's secondary was overmatched.

"They were good receivers," he told the Casper Star-Tribune (http://bit.ly/2cx5LzR). "I expected them to run their routes very well, and they were good. I felt like I can guard them."

While much of Nebraska's success through the air can be chalked up to their talent at receiver and quarterback - Tommy Armstrong Jr. became Nebraska's all-time passing touchdown leader in the win - the Cowboys still need to do some looking in the mirror.

"When you see a receiver run scot-free, and it happened at Nebraska in coverage, there you know that's a bust," Bohl said. "... So I don't want to say it's 50-50. I'd like to think that more of those things are correctable than they came down to just ability, but quite frankly, some of the plays did come down to (ability)."

Last year, Wyoming didn't face all that many passes - fewer than any other team in the nation, in fact - but had a hard time defending them when it did. The Cowboys allowed 8.47 yards per attempt last season, 10th worst nationally.

The Cowboys started freshmen in the secondary on a regular basis in 2015. Those players are sophomores now, but 2016 hasn't gotten off to a great start for the Wyoming secondary.

Against Northern Illinois, the Cowboys allowed 329 yards through the air, 139 of which came on four big NIU catches.

Through two games, the Cowboys are allowing more than 10 yards per pass attempt, sixth worst in the country.

Bohl said the team would look into positional changes in the secondary, but Wyoming's depth could prevent that. The team's depth chart remained unchanged after the Nebraska game.

"We're pretty thin there," Bohl said. "Some things I think we can correct. We're always looking and examining some of our players. We're playing right now with three corners, and we'll see which guy's hot.

"At the safety position, we did get beat over the top once, and so we're evaluating that, but I'm not looking at you in the eye right now and saying, 'Hey, it's going to be wholesale changes.' We knew those guys were going to be good. ... It was disappointing, and we're hoping that we're going to bounce back this week."

Hull agreed that Wyoming could benefit from seeing such athletic receivers the first two weeks.

"That prepares us for big schools," he said, "big teams in our conference that have good receivers."

Things might not get easier right away, though. While UC Davis, Wyoming's opponent Saturday, is a FCS opponent, Bohl is impressed with the Aggies' passing game.

"They've really got excellent quarterback play," he said. "Ben Scott has completed 65 percent of his passes. He's got a quick release. They've got tall receivers. They all seem to be about 6-foot-3, 200 pounds."

Still, the Aggies are not Nebraska. Even Northern Illinois presented a combination in quarterback Drew Hare and receiver Kenny Golladay that many teams would covet.

So, the opposing slate will ease up somewhat. Now the Cowboys need to fix things on their end.

"Busted coverages and things like that," Hull said of what went wrong at Nebraska. "The mistakes that we give them, we want to tighten those down and close down our holes in our zone."

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