(Wyoming release)
LARAMIE, Wyo. - University of Wyoming senior place-kicker Cooper Rothe will play in the East-West Shrine Bowl this Saturday, Jan. 18. The game that brings together the top senior players in the country will be played at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., and will kick off at 1:00 p.m., Mountain Time. The game will be televised live on NFL Network and will be broadcast on radio on Sirius XM NFL Channel 88.
Rothe, who will play for the East Team in the Shrine Bowl, concluded his Wyoming career as the school’s all-time leading scorer, with 342 career points scored. That broke the previous record of 324 points scored by former Cowboy place-kicker Sean Fleming from 1988-91. Rothe also set a new UW career record for field goals made, with 59, breaking Fleming’s previous record of 57. His 342 points scored ranked him No. 7 among all active FBS players competing at the end of the 2019 season, and his 59 field goals made ranked him No. 6 among active FBS players.
During Rothe’s Wyoming career, he was one of three finalists for the 2018 Lou Groza Collegiate Place-Kicker Award. Also in 2018, Rothe was voted the Mountain West Conference Special Teams Player of the Year, and he earned First Team All-Mountain West Conference honors.
Rothe was a starter on four bowl-eligible teams and played in three bowl games during his career at UW. Wyoming posted an 8-5 record in 2019 and captured the NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl Championship with a 38-17 win over Georgia State. The Cowboys compiled a 6-6 record in 2018, earning bowl eligibility for the Wyoming Football program for the third consecutive season. Rothe also was a leader of a team that posted an 8-5 record in 2017 and captured a victory in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. As a true freshman in 2016, Rothe scored 103 points as the Cowboys ended the season with an 8-6 record, a spot in the 2016 Mountain West Conference Championship Game and a berth in the 2016 San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl. He was part of a 2016 team that defeated two Top 25 teams and was named the National Team of the Week by the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) for one of those wins.
That last Wyoming Cowboy to play in the East-West Shrine Bowl was safety Andrew Wingard, who played in the game in 2019.
