Trouble brewing in Laramie?

The Wyoming Cowboys end of season bowl victory over Kent State in the bowl game was short-lived as many, many, many Wyoming players decided to enter the transfer portal.

That includes Wyoming quarterbacks Levi Williams and Sean Chambers. There must be something going on in Laramie with the staff because a mass exodus is looking like a big deal and probably means something up the food chain is an issue.

This is also the first full offseason of no transfer restrictions for a first-time move, meaning players can transfer and not sit out this upcoming year. That also includes moving within the conference which has been seen with a good number of Nevada players going to Colorado State.

Wyoming is in a unique spot with the official Twitter account basically advertising for a new quarterback, and including a picture of former Cowboy star and current Buffalo Bill Josh Allen.

Bohl’s message says he and his staff saw this coming for quarterbacks moving on. They did sign one quarterback in Caden Becker during the early signing period, so there is that.

“The college football landscape is changing with the one-time transfer rule and NIL. Our staff anticipated this movement and have a clear vision to navigate these uncharted waters. After a successful early signing day, Cowboy Football will address the need to sign a quarterback via the transfer portal or junior college.

“We believe this is a great opportunity for a transfer quarterback to come in and make an impact on our program. We’ve seen that before when we brought in Josh Allen into the program, and we’re excited for the next chapter of Cowboy Football.”

That is one heck of a Zip Recruiter ad Bohl is using to entice a young quarterback to come to Laramie. It is not the worst idea in the world to publicly say you want a quarterback but Bohl needs to change his ways as former Cowboy running back Brian Hill said.

Seeing the value in the transfer portal goes both ways. Bohl and his staff need to be more open and honest to players and also the era of the dictator coach is over. Coaches need to adjust their style to where they can be mean, angry, and aggressive when needed but also be understanding to the players on his roster to entice them to not up and leave the program.

Bohl must be seeing things differently now after he said this comment before playing Utah State in which he was pretty much against the transfer portal.

“Utah State has really flipped their roster through the transfer portal, that not our M.O. We’re a developmental program,” Bohl said. We’re just operating differently, there’s a lot of ways to skin a cat, but… I think it’s still important to have relationships with high school coaches. I think it’s important to find in-state talent here in Wyoming and have guys develop.”

Bohl is right and wrong in that statement. Building a team out of transfers and junior college players as the majority of their roster is difficult and not really all that manageable. Somehow, Bill Snyder was able to do it well at Kansas State, but Bob Davie going hard after JUCO players at New Mexico was a failure.

There are a few glaring things that Bohl said out loud he probably didn’t want to. Name, image, and likeness is going to be a factor for kids who sign in college. Wyoming being in a smaller state not flush with a ton of cash or super-rich alumni. This could be an issue if there are a few extra bucks these players could make somewhere else.

However, there are plenty of small-town colleges just like Laramie, Wyoming, and players have to know they are not guaranteed to get some sort of deal.

Perhaps, the Cowboys need to figure out some way for some entity that sponsors the team to maybe do some other type of deal that goes to the players over the school itself.

While that money would not go to the school to build some facility or improve the program that way, but it would help keep talent around and make the team better which could, in turn, provide more ticket sales with people going to games and buying gear from the school which could make up for that donation or even surpasses the typical amount.

The rules with NIL are very vague things like this could be done or even team-wide deals that BYU and Miami have with local companies that pay all athletes their tuition whether they are on scholarship or not. That could be an option at Wyoming.

The more easy change could be for the coaches to be more honest during recruiting and the coaching staff can’t run the program as if it were the military. There needs to be some tweaks with how the staff treats its players and that can go a long way even if players aren’t earning a few bucks on the side with an NIL deal.