In week 4, an entire state of fans getting priced out of the NIL era
- Lincoln Roch
- Sep 20
- 7 min read
LARAMIE, Wyo. — I should've been a cowboy.
The Toby Keith classic blasted out the horns of the Western Thunder Marching Band as they led the University of Wyoming Cowboys past thousands of fans into War.
An abbreviation for War Memorial Stadium, “War” might as well be its true name to the thousands of tailgaters lining their path. While the whole affair is similar to the Colorado Buffaloes’ Pearl Street Stampede, a lack of fence or rope separating players from the crowd makes “The Cowboy Walk” feel different. Less celebrity red carpet, more hometown parade. That's Wyoming football.
In the union's least populated state – where the largest city is smaller than my college town – one university reigns supreme. Because it's the only university. Coming from every corner of the state, the War’s tailgate alley — the parking lot outside — is filled with cars and lots and lots of trucks that have driven hundreds of miles to get here.
I’d made the 131-mile trek from Boulder in my Subaru Outback that day for the home opener against the Northern Iowa Panthers. Not to watch the Pokes battle it out on the field, but to meet the diehards in the stands. As the Buffs and Cowboys prepare to meet Saturday for the first time since 2009, I wanted to understand how they felt about their team's future as the world of college sports changes around them.
The House v. NCAA settlement now allows schools to pay their student athletes up to $20.5 million each year. Meanwhile, the transfer portal lets players move between schools twice a year. And conference realignment has led to chaos as teams leave and conferences search for replacements, all in the name of relevance.
In this new world, there will be winners and losers. At Colorado, Athletic Director Rick George has undertaken a massive effort, attempting to push the school into the winner’s column. At smaller schools like Wyoming, limited resources mean that ADs can only do so much. It’s left fans like the Pokes faithful watching games where the gap of competitiveness between big schools and small schools has never been wider.
G5 develops, P4 wins
Ken Dugas drove 50 miles from Cheyenne. For 30 years, he’s held season tickets for football, along with men's and women's basketball. Within four minutes of meeting him, we were talking about Josh Allen, who quarterbacked the team in 2017, his favorite season.
“I remember sitting in the stands, telling my kids … when he'd make a pass, ‘I've been coming to the games for 40 years, and I've never seen a quarterback throw like that,’” Dugas said.
Allen is the textbook case of an underdog. He didn’t receive a single Division I offer after high school and spent a year playing at a junior college. There, 1,000 emails to college coaches went unanswered until a scout for Wyoming noticed him.
In two years, he led the Pokes to consecutive bowl games, threw for 5,833 yards and pocketed 57 touchdowns. Drafted by the Buffalo Bills No. 7 overall — the highest in school history — he’s led the team to six consecutive playoff appearances and is the reigning NFL MVP. In November, his jersey will be retired — the first in school history.
Since the 2018 launch of the transfer portal, if a player like Allen has a breakout season at a Group of Five school, they can easily leave for the Power Four. Now, with revenue sharing, those breakout players can be motivated by money.
Tyrecus Davis was a standout cornerback for Wyoming in the 2023 and 2024 seasons, with 60 tackles and two interceptions. Capitalizing on his success, he entered the portal, landing with the Buffs. It’s unknown if he’s receiving money from the school, as Colorado law exempts revenue-sharing contracts from public records laws.
“These college athletes are changing schools three, four times,” said Bob Donchez, faculty director for CU’s Business of Sports Program. “Someone else pays them a little bit more money, and they get up and move to the next entity.”
By the end of the first half, it was tied 2-2 between touchdowns scored by Wyoming and the number of tributes to Allen on the jumbotron. The man holds deity status in the state. On Sundays, while most Rocky Mountain media markets air Broncos games, Wyoming watches the Bills.
As Dugas and I relived Allen's glory days, I asked him if the gunslinger would have stayed after his breakout year if it were today, in the NIL era.
“No, no way. And I wouldn't either. You know, loyalty only goes so far. Money's pretty important,” he said.
David v. Goliath, Cowboys v. Buffaloes?
Garth Yaets and his wife, Bobby, drove 221 miles from Riverton. The couple hosts the last tailgate before the stadium entrance, and Bobby says that for decades, the football players have called them mams and pops.
An old RV decked out to look like a Wyoming football billboard pulled me towards them, where for over 30 years they’ve been giving out free burgers and beer to anyone who walks past — regardless of what team they’re rooting for.
They’ve taken that RV on the road for just as long. Over the years, they’ve gotten to see upsets against Ole Miss, Tennessee and UCLA in the 2000s and Texas Tech last year.
Those schools have all committed to spending the full $20.5 million on athlete pay. Football programs are seeing most of those funds. At Colorado, NIL money is tied to the revenue a sport brings in, meaning football could see over $15 million in funds this year.
“We can't compete with that. We don't have the money for that. It's the rich get richer, pay to play,” Garth said.
Wyoming Athletic Director Tom Burman is allocating $2.8 million towards the House settlement, but only $1.5 million will go directly to NIL payments. The rest will be used for scholarships.
Wyoming isn’t alone. No schools in the Group of Five are expected to meet the full $20.5 million. While that will keep a level playing field inside the conferences, it will undoubtedly have implications for the College Football Playoff.
“The Group of Five, they're not going to be invited to the grown-ups table at Thanksgiving time, so to speak, when you have the power four, spending all the money,” Donchez said.
But as players like Davis flee, the teams they head to may be at a disadvantage. CU saw 33 players transfer out, and 33 players arrive to replace them during the offseason. That amount of turnover, in addition to 15 incoming freshmen, warrants flashcard sets to memorize the roster each year. It also results in fewer veterans who’ve played together. That can benefit smaller teams like the Pokes.
“Given the environment now, you could see the smaller school beating a bigger school because of the lack of continuity within a program,” Sanchez said. “It makes it easier for that upstart team to come in and pull off an upset, you know, just catching things right on one day.”
At Wyoming, football coach Jay Sawvel has prioritized keeping those veterans over all else. At the end of last season, he was determined to retain the 10 players most essential to the program. When the spring portal closed in April, he’d kept nine.
The beauty of a home game
Brandon Muise and his son, Paul, drove around 900 miles from Fort Worth, Texas. While neither attended the school, Brandon was born in Riverton, Wyo., where he was raised as a Poke. Back in Texas, the University's bucking horse and rider logo was welded into his driveway gate.
Brandon, who’s recently retired, was holding a pamphlet for the Cowboy Joe booster club, which he’s considering joining. He thinks Coach Sawvel is taking the team in the right direction, and with more free time, he wants to drive up for more games.
To an outsider, giving money to a team that you have to drive 14 hours to see might sound stupid. Especially when you’ve spent most of your life in a state with blue blood programs in national championship contention. But for those who take the long drives, whose fandom isn’t based on the school's size, or conference, or AP poll standing, the deal sounds pretty nice.
In Laramie, it’s the full-speed mustang with a real-life Marlboro Man at the reins, leading a state's football team onto the field. It’s the multiple renditions of “Ain’t No Beer In Heaven” belted from the student section and echoing from the horns of the band. And the beer snake that becomes a behemoth by the fourth quarter makes a stadium feel like home.
The Muises have been looking for their next Wyoming football trip. They thought about coming to Boulder, but the "Coach Prime Effect" has brought ticket costs unheard of in Laramie, leaving two dedicated fans priced out.
“They were really high-priced, so I thought, well, we're going to pass on that one,” Brandon said. “But we were legitimately trying to do that.”
I’ll never forget the first time I saw Colorado’s Buffalo mascot run the length of a football field, and the accompanying roar it earned from the stands. I was hooked.
For a college football fan, when the adrenaline is rushing, as players prepare to take the field, the athletic department budget doesn’t matter. They’re in the moment, screaming at the top of their lungs. Whether the pre-game ritual comes from the song “I Should’ve been a Cowboy” or an announcer's voice yelling “Here. Comes. Ralphie.”
Colorado takes on Wyoming at Folsom Field on Saturday. Kickoff’s at 8:15 p.m. MT (ESPN).
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