Riding a dominant defense and its typical clock-eating triple-option attack, Air Force handed Wyoming its first loss of the season Saturday at Falcon Stadium.
Haaziq Daniels found Brad Roberts for a 13-yard touchdown to put the Falcons ahead in the third quarter, and the Falcons defense made sure it held up, piling up four sacks and two turnovers in a 24-14 victory.
The win moved the Falcons to 5-1 overall and 2-1 in Mountain West Conference play, marking the program’s best start to a season since 2010. Wyoming (4-1, 0-1) saw its unbeaten start come to an end in its first conference game of the year.
Air Force controlled the ball throughout, producing a 17-minute, 36-second edge in time of possession — 38:48 to 21:12. That advantage was particularly pronounced during the first (12:32) and fourth quarters (11:57), when the Falcons had drives of 16 and 15 plays, respectively.
The former ended with the first touchdown of the game (Brad Roberts 1-yard run) and the latter a 26-yard Anthony Rodriguez field goal that gave the Falcons a 24-14 edge with 7:18 to go.
Daniels finished 7-of-10 passing for 110 yards and carried the ball nine times for 23 yards. Roberts ran for 140 yards on a career-high 33 carriers — his fourth 100-yard rushing game of the season.
All told, the Falcons churned out 211 yards on 64 carries, while Wyoming was limited to 114 yards on 27 carries — a pair of fumbles dooming two of the Cowboys’ 11 possessions.
That included Vince Sanford’s strip sack of quarterback Sean Chambers (11 of 28, 143 yards, one TD) with the Cowboys driving inside the Air Force 30-yard line with 1:27 to go.
Wyoming’s Xazavian Valladay made the most of his eight carries with 96 yards. But little else clicked for the Cowboys, who scored on back-to-back drives to go into halftime tied at 14-all, but went punt-punt-punt-fumble on their first four drives of the second half.
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