Wyoming walked in already thinner than it wanted to be. Defensive end Caleb Robinson tore his ACL in a fall scrimmage and is done for the season — the third straight year an injury has cost him significant time — which meant the Cowboys' pass rush was down a piece against a Colorado State line that had never played a snap together in this system. Wyoming coach Jay Sawvel had warned all week that this CSU team, with 74 new roster additions, was hard to scout.
None of that uncertainty showed up early. Colorado State's new pieces looked like they'd been running this offense for years, and by the time the market's pregame price got tested in real time, the answer was already trending toward a laugher in Fort Collins.
Hejny was clean and efficient from the jump, going 16-for-21 for 105 yards with two touchdowns by halftime and finishing with four total scoring throws — three of them to RJ Vick, including a 57-yarder. Hughes, by contrast, threw two interceptions and managed just 117 yards through the air with 14 more on the ground, and Colorado State's defense turned him over a third time on top of that. A sellout crowd at Canvas Stadium got Mora's Pac-12 debut as a rout, not a rivalry nail-biter.
For Wyoming, the loss stings beyond the scoreboard — a Border War blown open early against a team that beat them by 28 points a year ago flips the script fast, and it happened without their best edge rusher on the field. For Colorado State, it's the kind of debut a new staff dreams about: a clean quarterback performance, a defense that created extra possessions, and a home crowd that showed up for it. The rest of the non-conference slate will say a lot more about whether this was a real signal or just a good Week 1 matchup.