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Cowboys enter bye week after another close call

Sep. 26—EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — Coming off a near upset at the hands of a winless UConn team, the University of Wyoming will have to wait to get a bad taste out of its mouth.

The Cowboys have their only bye week of the season coming up, before opening Mountain West play Oct. 9 at Air Force

Following a grueling month of fall camp, followed by four consecutive games to open the season, UW can certainly use the rest. But as junior quarterback Sean Chambers notes, there's also a desire to move on from Saturday's close call and attempt to continue the Pokes' undefeated start.

"I know a lot of people in that locker room probably want the bye week, because you can get your bodies healed up and stuff, but I want to go back out there," Chambers said after Saturday's 24-22 victory. "Although we got a W, this one just doesn't sit right with me.

"I want to go back out there and show everybody what we can do ... but we've got the bye week and we're going to utilize it, so it is what it is."

Senior defensive end Garrett Crall echoed his teammate's sentiment. However, he also recognizes the Cowboys have an opportunity to use the week off to their benefit.

"You can look at it one of two ways," Crall said. "As a football player, I just want to keep playing games. I want to rest up tomorrow, watch the film, come in Monday to watch film with coaches and start rolling again. But we can definitely look at it as a benefit.

"We had three or four weeks of fall camp, and four weeks here of games. (We'll) get a little bit of rest, and maybe find a way to not let these games get so close at the end."

Signs of life

A UConn offense that had been dormant for the better part of 2021 came alive Saturday.

The Huskies, who had scored just 21 points all season against FBS opponents, put up 22 against UW. UConn also led for 50:08 of the contest after failing to take a lead in any of its previous three FBS tests.

Crunchtime experience

The Cowboys' offense had previous experience to lean on when it found itself trailing by six in the fourth quarter.

UW recorded game-winning, 75-yard touchdown drives in the fourth quarter of back-to-back games against Montana State and Northern Illinois to start the season. Chambers says the nature of these wins provided the Pokes with a sense of confidence, despite having trailed for the majority of the game Saturday.

"It definitely helps a lot," Chambers said. "What helps is knowing that we're capable of doing this stuff, it's just about doing it. We've always talked about going out there and doing it, and to stop talking about it.

"There was some point in that game where we needed to put a drive together and go score. I think we put together two really nice drives, one we were aided by an Esaias Gandy interception, so we put together two nice drives to go win that game. That's all we needed to do, it just sucks it came later rather than sooner."

Running into the record books

Running back Xazavian Valladay delivered another productive performance Saturday, rushing for 101 yards and a touchdown, while adding 33 yards receiving. This marked the third consecutive game in which he has surpassed 100 all-purpose yards.

This production is nothing new for the senior, however, evidenced by his latest milestone.

With a four-yard run early in the third quarter, Valladay became the seventh player in UW history to rush for more than 2,500 yards in his career. He finished the game at 2,551 career yards, moving past Shaun Wick into the No. 6 spot on the Cowboys' all-time rushing list.

Josh Criswell covers the University of Wyoming for WyoSports. He can be reached at jcriswell@wyosports.net or 307-755-3325. Follow him on Twitter at @criswell_sports.