1 Game in Australia: The Story of the 1985 Australia Bowl

Nineteen thousand one hundred people attended the Australia Bowl in Melbourne on December 7, 1985, marking the only time the University of Wyoming football team has played a game outside the United States.

The matchup between the Wyoming Cowboys and the UTEP Miners at VFL Park remains a singular anomaly in the program’s history. While the contest served as the first college football game played on Australian soil, the competitive stakes for the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) were remarkably low. Both programs entered the season finale at the bottom of the league standings, with each team holding just a single conference victory.

The game also served as a final chapter for two programs in transition. Wyoming head coach Al Kincaid and UTEP head coach Bill Yung were both coaching their final games after being dismissed earlier in the season. Despite the lack of championship implications, the game became a high-stakes battle to avoid finishing last in the WAC.

“I thought it was a great move to do,” Kevin McKinney, the 1985 Director of Sports Information and a longtime color commentator for Wyoming, said in an episode of the UW athletics podcast Behind the Brand.

A last-minute scheduling shift

The Australia Bowl was not originally designed as a Wyoming-UTEP affair. According to a December 4, 1985, report from the Laramie Boomerang, the game was initially intended to feature Hawai’i and San Diego State. However, scheduling conflicts prevented those teams from participating, prompting officials to call upon the Cowboys and the Miners instead.

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The contest was originally slated for October 19 in El Paso, but the two schools moved the game to December 7 following an invitation from the Australian government. Wyoming athletic director Gary Cunningham noted the significance of the invitation at the time, stating that the educational experience for the student-athletes would be invaluable and that the university could accept the offer at no expense to the school.

While VFL Park could accommodate approximately 75,000 spectators, the actual attendance of 19,100 was much lower than the venue's capacity. The financial realities of the event eventually led to the discontinuation of the Australia Bowl after this single iteration. McKinney said that organizers struggled with basic logistics, including insufficient funds to provide meals for all the players in Melbourne.

The scoring breakdown in Melbourne

The game began slowly with a scoreless first quarter, but the Miners found momentum early in the second period. Freshman running back John Harvey scored from one yard out just three seconds into the quarter to give UTEP the lead.

Wyoming responded through sophomore quarterback Scott Runyan, who connected with receiver Lawrence Chavers for a 14-yard touchdown. UTEP regained control at the start of the third quarter when a 96-yard kickoff return was followed immediately by a 19-yard rushing touchdown from Randy Forrest. This sequence pushed the Miners to a 21-7 lead.

Runyan led a Wyoming comeback, scoring a rushing touchdown and later throwing another touchdown pass to bring the Cowboys within a single point, trailing 21-20 after a failed two-point conversion. The momentum shifted permanently when senior kicker Andy Cottingham hit a 34-yard field goal with 9:35 remaining, giving Wyoming a 23-21 lead.

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The Cowboys’ defense secured the victory when sophomore linebacker Galand Thaxton intercepted a pass at the Wyoming 38-yard line to seal the win. The outcome provided a rare moment of relief for a season defined by struggles, including a Wyoming home attendance average of just 14,010—the lowest since the program joined the WAC in 1962.

While the Cowboys claimed the Australia Bowl, UTEP’s season was highlighted by a massive upset against No. 7 BYU in the Sun Bowl, which remains the Miners’ highest-ranking win over an AP Top-25 opponent. College football would not return to Australia until 1987, when the Melbourne Bowl featured BYU and Colorado State.