The official offseason is upon us. Wyoming athletics has officially concluded spring football. They’ve concluded the track season. They’ve concluded the golf season. At this point we’re counting down the number of days until football starts. It might be forever from now for all I know. I could be one of those annoying guys that does a player countdown every single day on Twitter starting at 99 and moving my way down the depth chart. However, I’m not that guy. I’ll forgot, I’m lazy, it’s summer and I’m probably going to spend a good majority of 99-75 not entirely sober so I’m doing my own thing.
I’m going to focus my energy on blogging about the number blocks. I’ll be doing 99-90, 89-80, etc until we get to the regular season opener. We have a long ways to go before we get that far and a lot of sunny days ahead until we’re back in Laramie watching the Cowboys take on Northern Illinois.
The 90s block gives us Carl Granderson (91), Youhanna Ghaifan (93), Brendan Turelli (94), Sidney Malauulu (96), Dalton Fields (98), and Brent Gilliland (99).
The star of this group is sophomore defensive end Carl Granderson. He was starting as a true freshman, even though he played his position a little smaller than the coaching staff would have liked. Due to injuries and depth chart problems he needed to play. Despite those couple of obstacles he was still impressive and left a positive mark with fans and the coaching staff. Granderson finished the season with 36 tackles, six of them for a loss. He also finished with a sack. Reports coming out of spring ball are that Granderson has piled on some weight. This should allow him to be more effective at his position next season.
Brendan Turelli will be back to his spot as a long snapper. He’ll be a senior entering this coming season. He’ll need to be effective to keep the Cowboy special teams moving forward.
Sidney Malauulu will also be a sophomore entering this season on the defensive line. This guy brings some much needed size to the line this season, a needed anchor to replace the departed Uso Olive. Malauulu finished last season with 19 tackles and half a sack. This season he’ll need to be effective at busting the double teams from the offensive line as well as helping a defense that finished very poorly in the run defense last season. He will be an important cog to the defense next season.
Dalton Fields finished last season by playing in all twelve games and recorded four tackles on the season. Much like Malauulu he will be needed to anchor the defensive line and make it productive against the rush next season. They’ll get an early season test with Northern Illinois right off the bat.
Youhanna Ghaifan and Brent Gilliland were redshirts last year and did not record any statistics, just valuable knowledge in watching their teammates play college football.
This 90s block of players will be important for the team to be successful. With the exception of Brendan Turelli all of these guys need to be important cogs on the defensive line for the Cowboys to show any improvement on defense. Granderson will need to replace the numbers that Eddie Yarbrough put up. Malauulu will need to be a solid anchor inside for the unit. The others will need to be ready to step in at a moment’s notice ready to contribute.