LARAMIE – Jay Sawvel stared at the whiteboard with a sense of satisfaction.
 
Wyoming's second-year head coach gave members of the media an inside look at the Pokes' 2025 recruiting war room adjacent to his office in the High Altitude Performance Center.
 
Sawvel's NFL general manager-style big board is now filled with the names of high school recruits and transfers officially added to the roster through the early signing period in December and Wednesday's traditional signing day.
 
The Cowboys' haul of 40 new players includes 16 transfers and 24 high school prospects from 18 different states.
 
"We needed an infusion of it all the way through, because the bottom line to it is, you need depth so you can be injury resilient," said Sawvel, whose debut 3-9 season taking over the program from Craig Bohl was mired by injuries and derailed with four losses by four or fewer points. "I'll admit it right now, I did not do a good enough job a year ago of making this roster kind of resilient enough against the full load of a season."
 
From the prep ranks, 16 of UW's 24 signed prospects are rated as three-star recruits.
 
Four of the 2025 class headliners – Mason Drube of Gillette, wide receiver Deion DeBlanc of Houston, cornerback Tyson Deen of San Antonio and defensive end Axel Ramazani of Des Moines, Iowa – are already on campus participating in workouts.
 
Sawvel announced the signing of 20 high school recruits in December and added running back Patrick Broadway of Houston, defensive end Jason Handy of Cedar Park, Texas, long snapper Charlie Houston of Rowlett, Texas, and defensive tackle Gabriel Ikechukwu of Houston to the class on Wednesday.
 
"We needed to balance (the roster), because the thing is with some of these extra spots it would have made no sense for us to go out and sign 38 high school guys," Sawvel said. "We had a lot of things that we needed to address in the here and now."
 
UW, which signed Snow College cornerback BJ Inmon in December, welcomed 15 additional transfers from the junior college, Division II, FCS and FBS levels.
 
Three of the newcomers – safety Brooklyn Cheek (Cal), wide receiver Jackson Holman (Arizona) and safety Justin Taylor (Wisconsin) – came from Power 4 programs.
 
Nine of the transfers are upperclassmen who will be expected to have an immediate impact on getting the Pokes back on the winning track.
 
"You can't fix it while you're in it," Sawvel said of the advice he received from Bohl during last season's struggles. "But once you get out of it, you need to fix it."
 
The positional breakdown of the additions since the Pokes concluded Sawvel's first season as head coach with a 15-14 win at Washington State on Nov. 30 is as follows: One specialist, two quarterbacks, two tight ends, four running backs, four linebackers, five offensive linemen, five wide receivers, eight defensive backs and nine defensive linemen.
 
"Coming out of the Washington State game I had three clear goals," Sawvel said. "Number one, keep our team together. The players we needed to be here are here. So that's goal number one. Number two was to sign a really good high school class because still foundationally we need to sign a really good group of high school players to develop and work through going forward.
 
"And the third thing was we needed to utilize the space that we had and the slots that we had to add in an infusion of maturity, talent and competition."
 
The Cowboys return a solid foundation on offense, including quarterback Kaden Anderson, tight end John Michael Gyllenborg, running backs Harrison Waylee and Sam Scott, wide receivers Jaylen Sargent and Chris Durr Jr. and nine offensive linemen from the 2024 two-deep.
 
Sawvel plans to add as many as three players during the spring transfer portal window. A punter and another receiver could be on the to-do list if the right fits are available.
 
Evan Svoboda, last year's starting quarterback, is up to 250 pounds and "running well" as a tight end among a strong group that includes Gyllenborg, Justin Erb, Clay Nanke, Isaac Schoenfeld and Jake Wilson.
 
A year ago, Sawvel tabbed Svoboda as QB1 entering spring practice. This season Drube, junior college transfer Landon Sims, redshirt freshman Devon Batiste and sophomore Gage Brook will be given an opportunity to compete with Anderson for the job through spring and fall camps.
 
"It's really hard to win without a good quarterback," Sawvel said. "I feel like Kaden certainly has the ability to be a really good quarterback, but I also feel like we've got now kind of a room that you look at and go, OK, for the foreseeable future we could be really solid in the quarterback room. I think that's a huge thing."
 
Jack Walsh will move from left guard to center to replace Nofoafia Tulafono. The versatile senior is one of UW's clear-cut team leaders, but Sawvel will not name captains going forward.
 
"I want 25 leaders not four," Sawvel said. "So, that's what we've got to get to."
 
Starters Jake Davies (left tackle), Rex Johnson (right guard) and Caden Barnett (right tackle) are also back. Three other key offensive linemen who suffered injuries during the season – Nathan Geiger, Wes King and Quinn Grovesteen-Matchey – will push for starting spots.
 
"We've got to increase our number of winning and winnable players," Sawvel said. "Jack Walsh wants to win and he's going to bring people with him and he's not going to be shy about saying it."
 
Sawvel pointed to a blank whiteboard in the team room during his press conference when asked what the defensive depth chart looks like going into spring.
 
Defensive ends Sabastian Harsh and Tyce Westland, nose tackle Ben Florentine, defensive tackle Jayden Williams, cornerback Keany Parks and nickel back Wrook Brown return but UW must replace three starters in the secondary and two starting linebackers.
 
Esia Bogar (Riverside City College), Dawan Martin (Youngstown State) and Brayden Wilson (Weber State) should upgrade the Pokes' pass rush. Aneesh Vyas, a graduate transfer from Bucknell, will help fortify the interior of the defensive line along with returners Dante Drake, Caleb Robinson and Lucas Samsula. Redshirt freshman Nathan Murphy appears to have a bright future at defensive tackle.
 
Brayden Johnson, a 6-foot-3, 235-pound senior transfer from Oklahoma Baptist, and Ethan Stuhlsatz, a 6-4, 225-pound senior transfer from Lindenwood, add experience and sized to the linebacker room. Evan Eller, who redshirted last season after transferring from VMI, will compete for a spot in the rotation.
 
The coaching staff is excited about the potential of redshirt freshmen Gary Rutherford, Adrian Onyiego, Jack Harvey and Dash Bauman to continue the program's recent tradition of excellence at the linebacker positions.
 
As promised, Sawvel aggressively addressed the secondary by signing of Cheek, Inmon, Taylor, Jaden DaCosta (Portland State) and Desman Hearns (Southern Illinois) via the portal.
 
"Wide open all the way through," Sawvel said of competition he expects this spring from defensive coordinator Aaron Bohl's unit. "We have to increase our number of playable, winnable players."
 
Sawvel thanked the program's loyal fan base for creating the Mountain West's best game-day atmosphere at War Memorial Stadium despite a down year in the win column.
 
UW hosted 61 official visits and signed 40 players during this recruiting cycle.
 
"I wasn't sure we could pull it all off," Sawvel said.
 
There will be 103 players participating in spring practice, which begins March 25. All 15 practices will be open to the media and the Saturday practices will be open to the public, including the annual Brown and Gold Game on April 26 at War Memorial Stadium.
 
Preparation for the Aug. 28 opener at Akron is well underway with 20 mid-year enrollees having joined the returning cast for the winter strength and conditioning program last month.
 
"When you go through a season like we had last year, which nobody around here is happy about, most of all me, all of our players are handling this the way that we need to in the fact that they're pissed and they want to work hard and change that," Sawvel said.
 
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