Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

I want to dive into summer. Really, I do.

There's no question the best time of the year weather-wise in these parts starts in June and runs as long as Mother Nature will allow. Sometimes that's well into September and even October, but sometimes it ends in August.

Here's hoping for the longer version of that equation this year.

But here's the problem I'm having with diving into summer. The University of Wyoming football program keeps interrupting.

Each time I'm ready to put the Cowboys and one of the most anticipated upcoming seasons in UW football history aside for just a little bit, Craig Bohl and Co. reach out and pull me back in.

The biggest reason why the Cowboys haven't let go of the local spotlight is, of course, Josh Allen.

The redshirt junior quarterback kept the region – and the nation – intrigued ever since the 2016 season ended back on a rainy, somewhat disappointing Dec. 21 in San Diego. He then seriously flirted with entering the NFL draft.

Allen has admitted there was actually a brief time when he was all set to declare for the draft. Then he had a change a heart, and decided he needed one more year in the brown and gold.

It was roughly a 48-hour period that changed the course of the UW football program a couple of different times as Cowboys fans were blissfully unaware.

Spring ball came and went with no major issues, although there has to be some trepidation about just who will replace a talented receiving corps and who will carry the football, with those who did it so well for the Cowboys last season all about to start NFL training camps.

Now, just as summer starts its lazy June run, comes news of UW's season-opener against Iowa.

When the likes of ABC and ESPN passed on the Cowboys-Hawkeyes matchup for Sept. 2 in Iowa City, Iowa, it seemed inevitable that the game was destined for the Big Ten Network.

And if you've spent any time in the Hawkeye State, you know that Iowans loves them some late-morning football. So it was even more inevitable that the game would have a 10 a.m. MT kickoff, which it will.

That means breakfast with the Cowboys in these parts. At least UW fans don't have to sit around all day, anxiously awaiting the start of the season. But it now means fans either have to reign in the frivolity a little the night before or simply Cowboy up the next morning.

The countdown to the 2017 season has officially started, and those who have been thinking of attending the game deep in the heart of Iowa can now make definite plans.

Oh, a word of warning for those who plan on going to the game: Get there early. I mean early.

Kinnick Stadium sits right in the heart of the Iowa campus, and getting 70,000 people into a small, confined area that has about as much parking nearby as War Memorial Stadium, is always a tight squeeze.

The good thing is the game day atmosphere – even if it is seen as the sun comes up – is some of the best in the nation.

Now only four UW football games – home games against Gardner-Webb, Texas State and Fresno State, and a contest at Utah State – are left TV-less. The games with the Aggies and Bulldogs seem like no-brainers for Root Sports, and don't be surprised if the Cowboys' two nonconference home games get picked up as well.

After all, the Pokes are a hot ticket right now. Hot enough to keep making headlines, even when the schedule says nothing is happening.

As summer officially begins in the high plains, UW football still is on the front burner. Because, you know, we are less than 100 days removed from the kickoff between the Cowboys and the Hawkeyes.

I have a feeling the Pokes will be front and center all summer long.

And maybe that's not that a bad thing.

Not bad at all.