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It was the second consecutive game that they've held a solid offensive team way under it's scoring average and have a chance in the final minute. They turned the ball over and missed a layup on two straight possessions where they were down just three points, which more or less decided the game.

More on another game of missed opportunities in tomorrow's coverage online and in the Star-Tribune.

I'll have a sidebar as well as CSU coach Tim Miles went out of his way to offer some unsolicited defense of Heath Schroyer. You won't want to miss what either of the coaches said, so check it out.

Also, be aware this blog will hopefully be moving to a better location for you in the next few days. More on that forthcoming.

Wyoming has now confirmed that, and that UW has hired former Bowling Green head coach Gregg Brandon as its offensive coordinator. I remember asking Brandon if he had any interest in the head coaching position at UW when the Falcons came to Laramie and beat the Pokes in Joe Glenn's final year. Brandon took the high road and said he wouldn't comment on a job that wasn't open.

Now the former UW receivers coach is back.

Here are the final thoughts from Arroyo from Signing Day, two days before his announced departure:

On building relationships with incoming QBs Adam Pittser and Brett Smith:

"Those are our top two guys on the board. Both were out of my [recruiting] area, but I was in their house every week during the recruiting process. ... That position's different. We felt it was vital to get a real good feel for exactly who they were. ... I think it was a great team effort in getting those guys."

On having two true freshmen and a redshirt freshman involved in an open competition:

"Instead of one [freshman], we've got three. Two years ago, we did the same thing. I've done it before with true freshmen. It's going to be something that's real exciting."

On whether having freshmen in the competition changes where the offense heads in regards to the spread:

"We'll stay in the direction we're going offensively and we'll mold it around [a starter] and make sure it moves at an appropriate tempo."

Plenty more that I gathered from Signing Day still to come, but with the staff decisions being the most pressing, there's something to nibble on for now.

With the news of a Wyoming staff shakeup coming late Thursday night, there's not a ton to expound on quite yet, but I'll do what I can to get to it on Friday morning.

Here's what we do know. There were reports Thursday night that Gregg Brandon was going to be the offensive coordinator at Wyoming, a curious circumstance given that there was no indication given that current Cowboys coordinator Marcus Arroyo was going anywhere.

I was able to confirm the Brandon report while also breaking the news that Marcus Arroyo is headed for Cal, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

Brandon coached at Wyoming from 1987 to 1990 under Paul Roach, coaching the receivers during a period where the team was 20 games above .500 and went to three bowl games. Brandon then moved on to Northwestern, then Bowling Green where he was an assistant under Urban Meyer and then took over as head coach when Meyer left. Brandon went 44-30, but was still let go after his fourth season.

He was most recently the offensive coordinator at Virginia.

Just on the surface, this seems like a solid get for Wyoming, as the Cowboys get a coach who has been here before and implemented a spread offense at Virginia. The Cowboys' spread underwent numerous shifts in schemes this year and the team finished 3-9.

Still a bit of curious timing as the moves are obviously coming directly after Signing Day and after the Cowboys recruited quarterbacks Brett Smith and Adam Pittser who are expected to compete immediately for the starting gig left open by Austyn Carta-Samuels, though I suppose that's the nature of college football these days.

Again, we'll do our best to continue the developing story as the day moves forward.

Well, we certainly need to give credit where credit is due.

Sure, BYU hardly played at its best tonight, and probably played the worst it had all season. But, Wyoming did have something to do with that.

With a variety of defensive looks, the Pokes put the clamps on Jimmer Fredette -- he ONLY scored 26 -- frustrating a leading candidate for Player of the Year before losing 69-62 to the No. 8 team in the country.

Like most others, I didn't give the Cowboys a chance in this game. I wasn't expecting another shellacking like San Diego State, but wasn't expecting this, either.

Given the state of the conference, it's hard for me to see UW completely turning its season on end, but if the Cowboys play with the effort on defense that they showed tonight, it's a team that the fans could, and should, at least root for.

And if they play like this again on Saturday, and like they did for the first 15 minutes against Colorado State the first time, it could be an interesting Border War.

At our end-of-season wrapup meeting, Wyoming coach Dave Christensen said he thought the Cowboys would run much more of a spread offense in the upcoming season.

With the departure of veteran starting quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels, I had to wonder if that would change at all with three freshmen competing for the starting gig.

It won't, at least according to Christensen and his offensive coordinator, Marcus Arroyo, at today's Signing Day.

"We'll stay in the direction we're going offensively," Arroyo said. "We'll build it around [a starter] and make sure it moves at an appropriate tempo."

UW offensive line coach Jim Harding said the plan is to move the offensive line back out to the wider splits involved in that spread beginning during spring camp.

"We're still doing the same thing," Christensen said. "Just getting better at it."

Spring camp opens in a month. For more on the upcoming QB battle between Emory Miller, Brett Smith and Adam Pittser, check out tomorrow's Star-Tribune.

All the Wyoming Cowboys can really do about Saturday's loss is forget it. They watched film Monday, but with another top-10 team on the schedule tonight -- UW hosts BYU at 6 p.m. -- they can hardly dwell on it.

"That was last week; we're just trying to move forward," UW guard Desmar Jackson said. "Like San Diego State, it's more than one player you have to worry about. ... We've just got to focus and concentrate on our defensive gameplan."

A lot of the talk has been about Jimmer Fredette coming to town, though it'll be interesting to see if there's any bump in attendance given the chilling weather conditions.

Wyoming is a 14- to 15-point underdog against the No. 8 Cougars.

"Coach is going to have a good gameplan for us and we're going to try to go out and execute that," UW junior Adam Waddell said. "Last year we went into BYU and held [Fredette] to 13, I think.

"We have an opportunity to beat them. ... There's excitement around it and everyone likes an upset."

Think they can pull it off?

With Jimmer Fredette in town for tomorrow night's game between Wyoming and BYU, it got me thinking whether a player with this much hype has ever played here at the Arena-Auditorium.

I haven't really lived here or in the region long enough to know, so I asked around the UW athletics office to shed some light on the situation.

Recent names that were at least part of the discussion included Andrew Bogut or Keith Van Horn. Some brought up the team in the 80s from Cincinnati, though it probably didn't have one hyped superstar. Someone even brought up Matt Goukas from St. Joe's in the 1960s.

But when it came down to it, everyone agreed, that the Double-A hasn't really hosted a player of this hype ever.

What say you?

You know how sometimes we say games were over at tipoff? This one literally was.

Billy White grabbed the ball off the tip and scored it in a matter of four seconds and the rout was on. The San Diego State Aztecs never let up in a 96-57 drubbing of Wyoming here at Viejas Arena in San Diego tonight.

The Cowboys have lost worse in Mountain West Conference play, a 45-point slaughter at The Pit in Heath Schroyer's first trip there and a 41-point loss at Air Force when everyone and their brother was suspended or hurt.

Once it gets to this big of a margin, does it even really matter?

It's not like it was a secret going in that the Cowboys were outmatched. The Aztecs were the No. 4 team in the country and were back home at a sold-out arena coming off their first loss of the season, so they were going to be out for blood.

The question was, could the Cowboys give them a game? The answer was a resounding 'No.'

And now they have to try to put up a competitive game against another ranked team when BYU comes to town on Wednesday.

And I think it's safe to say that the Cougars' -- and nation's -- leading scorer will not be held to two points as Kawhi Leonard was tonight.

Perhaps that's the worst part of all. The MWC's third-leading scorer had one bucket, and he clearly didn't need another.

Just wrapped up the usual Thursday conference with Wyoming men's basketball coach Heath Schroyer. One thing I wanted to pick his brain about was the rotation against UNLV that had Brian Gibson as the five-man and Djibril Thiam at the 4 spot.

They played together for the better part of five minutes and I thought it was an interesting and relatively effective look. The Cowboys and Rebels were tied 12-12 when Gibson came in and were down three when he left, but that stint helped the Cowboys hang in there until they made their late first-half run for an eight-point halftime lead.

"I just wanted to get more size on the floor," Schroyer said. "Djibril did a nice job at the four with us. That was really just the rotation that we went to."

Despite what appeared to be a decent new look, the Cowboys didn't ever go to it again against the Rebels. Not even during a second half where nothing was going right and a fresh look certainly couldn't have hurt anymore than the Pokes were already hurting.

Still, Schroyer said it's possible we see the look more against San Diego State, which boasts what he calls an NBA-type line of forwards and bigs.

"I think you could, yeah," Schroyer said. "We're always, in every game, trying to find the best rotation for every game and I thought that one was a pretty good one."