Winningest Ever: Mark Branch’s Cowboy Tough Culture Built Wyoming Wrestling
- Jeff Bugher
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 8 hours ago
LARAMIE, Wyo. - For nearly two decades after taking over the University of Wyoming wrestling program, Mark Branch has built a consistent winning program.
He has built a blue-collar standard.
Following his 18th season in Laramie, Branch owns a 159-99 coaching record, making him the winningest head coach in program history. His resume includes 21 All-Americans, 91 NCAA qualifiers, 29 conference champions, two NCAA finalists, and six team conference championships. Along the way, he has helped elevate Wyoming wrestling into one of the nation’s most respected developmental programs.
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PokesNews.com had the chance to catch up with Branch following the NCAA Championships that were held in Cleveland, Ohio.
“It's been really fulfilling, you know,” Branch told PokesNews.com about his time in the Gem City of Laramie, Wyoming. “It was my first opportunity to be a head coach, and there's a lot of uncertainty. …Whether or not you're going to be a fit and whether or not you'll have the tools to be successful. I think we really got off to a really good start, and that's the thing, the consistency over the years through thick and thin.”
That consistency has become the defining characteristic of Branch’s tenure.
Since arriving in 2008, he has coached 13 different Cowboys to All-American status. Including three in Cleveland this year. He has coached 29 conference champions, including 24 in the Western Wrestling Conference and five in the Big 12. He also helped guide Bryce Meredith to two NCAA Finals appearances.
Space to Grow: Wyoming Wrestling’s New Facility Changes Everything
Branch said one of his priorities from the beginning was making sure Wyoming could consistently produce elite-level wrestlers.
“We've had challenges here to upgrade our facilities, and I think recruiting's always been a challenge, and that took us a little while to iron out and figure out how to attack recruiting,” Branch said.
Mark used the term “very homey” to describe the current facilities for the program, which makes the program’s success, including many All-Americans, even more impressive. “One of the priorities was we have to have All-Americans consistently, and so to be able to do that has definitely been rewarding.”
That homey feeling Branch described has turned into a lasting foundation for the program.
Branch said the university’s continued commitment to wrestling has played a major role in keeping the Cowboys competitive and relevant well into the future.
“The biggest thing…investment in wrestling and making sure wrestling matters,” Branch said. “And I think that's good for the sport when a program like Wyoming is making wrestling important, making it matter.”
That investment has been years in the making.
Branch said Wyoming began seriously addressing its wrestling facilities more than a decade ago, making major upgrades through private support that helped bridge the gap until the new state-of-the-art facility became a reality. He mentioned that the program began looking at ways to improve its wrestling facilities about 11 years ago. They've done overhauls over the years, including a weight room, locker room, and bathrooms. Now, a new facility is on the verge of opening up for the program.
“That was, for the most part, privately funded. We raised over $1,000,000, so that bridged the gap from when I got here to where we're going here in a few months.”
That support, he said, may have been the difference between staying competitive and falling behind.
“I'm not sure if we wouldn't have had that if we hadn't had the support over the last decade. Of improving the facilities that we're in, we would have fallen behind,” Branch said. “That was a real opportunity to stay relevant and keep building.”
Even with those upgrades, Wyoming still lacked one key element - space. Branch mentioned that wrestlers were running into each other in practice, and had to stop short of wrestling moves due to the limited space.
“When you're when your guys are kind of falling on each other and running into each other, and you have to stop short a lot because. You know, you might not be able to finish a technique or finish a move because you end up running into the wall or you end up running into another group,” he said. “It changes how you train and how you can train.”
No need to worry about space or facilities anymore. The new facility will encompass 13,431 square feet, nearly double that of the current facility, and should be ready to go this fall in the John Corbett Building.
He believes the added room will allow Wyoming wrestlers to prepare in a way that better mirrors competition. Mark is very excited to have the new space, which will be closer to the reality of how the team will wrestle in a competition.
Earned, Not Given: Wyoming Wrestling’s Blue-Collar Identity
PokesNews.com asked Mark Branch about what exactly defines Wyoming Wrestling.
“Blue collar,” he said. “Our motto is living cowboy tough. I think we try to instill the mentality that we're Cowboys and we have to be tough. We have to do the right things. We have to develop our wrestlers. They have to work to be developed. They're going to have to put the work in.”
That means Wyoming often has to win in different ways.
“We're not going to get the top of the top recruits, but we're going to get good kids. We have to get them to a different level. The development part is everything,” Branch said.
That philosophy extends well beyond the mat or the training room.
“We want to do things right on and off the mat,” he said. Our focus as coaches is to build young men, not just young wrestlers. We have to get our student athletes prepared for life after wrestling, life after college.”
Branch said that culture shows up in everyday habits as much as big moments do. Building culture from the ground up.
“Take care of the people that take care of you, take care of each other, take care of our facilities, pick up trash, clean up after yourself,” he said. “We don't want to have these, you know, hoity toity attitudes that, that we deserve something, everything that we deserve, we have to go out and earn. We talk about the code of the West and those values that come with that, finishing what you start, being a man of your word.”
That message has clearly resonated. Branch builds winners!
The 2024-25 season was a strong example of what Branch has built. Wyoming finished 12-6 overall and 6-3 in the Big 12 while going a perfect 5-0 at home. The Cowboys won seven of their final eight duals, finished 22nd at the NCAA Championships, and placed 10th at the Big 12 Tournament. Joey Novak earned All-American honors with a fifth-place finish at NCAAs, while freshman Eddie Neitenbach was one of five Cowboys to qualify for the national tournament. Wyoming also pulled off the largest comeback in school history, rallying from 14-0 down to beat Drexel 20-18 at the NWCA Duals - a victory that made Branch the program’s all-time wins leader.
Then in 2026, the Cowboys took another step, placing 12th nationally at the NCAA Championships - the highest finish of Branch’s 18-year tenure - with three All-Americans in Novak, Neitenbach, and heavyweight Christian Carroll.
Branch said reaching All-American status often comes down to belief, buy-in, and consistency.
“The path to really becoming your best version of yourself is just believing in yourself, believing in what you can accomplish, and then also setting high expectations for yourself,” he said.
He believes Division I wrestling humbles every athlete, no matter how decorated their high school career may have been.
“You're going to come into a college wrestling room, and you may have been the big dog in your high school,” Branch said. “And then they get knocked down. They start questioning themselves a little bit. For some guys it it's a struggle to build that back.”
The wrestlers who make that leap, he said, are often the ones who fully buy into the process.
“When you start understanding why all those things are important, and you buy in. I think that success starts to come a little bit easier,” Branch said. “If you look at those three guys that became All-Americans, those guys believe in themselves, they bought into our program, they believe in each other, they push each other, they have great attitudes, they come in ready to get better, and it is contagious.”
That contagious growth is something Branch has worked to build throughout the room, especially through leadership.
He said leadership in wrestling is especially tricky because the sport demands both selflessness and selfishness.
“There also is a part of this sport that you have to be selfish,” Branch said. “And those things don't go well together. It's kind of a balancing act of when do I become selfish and focus on what I need and what I have to do to accomplish my goals? When can I give part of myself to becoming a leader?”
He has learned over the years that leadership cannot be forced.
“We've tried things in the past,” Branch said. “We put together, years ago, a leadership council, and we had representatives from every class, and it was a disaster. You can't force it.”
Instead, he points to Novak as a recent example of a wrestler who naturally grew into that role.
“Joey Novak's a great example of when he started to buy in, and he started to understand that the things that we were providing him with were important and those things were going to help him be successful,” Branch said. “When he really started figuring that out, that's when I approached him about going a step further and becoming a leader.”
That evolution had a ripple effect throughout the room.
“When he started taking those steps, I noticed people around him not only buying into that, but then doing the same thing,” Branch said. “They started becoming leaders. We have several guys on our team that I think are really positive leaders right now.”
Branch Finds Value in Sharing His Championship Story
Did you know that UW Wrestling is led by a two-time NCAA National Champion wrestler?
Before arriving in Laramie, he built an elite resume at Oklahoma State. As a wrestler, he was a four-time NCAA All-American, a four-time NCAA finalist, and a two-time national champion at 167 pounds. As a coach, he was part of four NCAA championship teams at OSU and helped coach 57 All-Americans and 16 NCAA champions. He was also named NWCA Assistant Coach of the Year in 2004.
Still, Branch admitted there was a time when he did not fully draw on his championship experiences in his coaching; he wanted to be humble.
“I didn’t want to be making it about me.”
That has changed in recent years.
“Probably the last five or so years, I've realized a little bit more that it's important to share those experiences, to share those feelings, to share the ups and downs that I went through as an athlete,” Branch said. “I find a lot of commonality in it now. I see things that I recognize that they're going through that I went through.”
Now, he sees his past not as something to avoid discussing.
“I think it kind of helps them be a little bit at ease…hey, this guy's been there, he's won at this level, won national championships. That information, I think, is valuable, and I think they feel that it's valuable,” Branch said.
What Makes Wyoming Special? Mark Branch Points to Unity
He said one of the things he has come to appreciate most about the university is how much the athletic programs genuinely support one another.
“I think this is something that separates us from a lot of colleges,” Branch said. “I think this is a it's a small enough athletic department that everybody knows everybody pretty well.”
It’s not like that at other universities.
“When I left Oklahoma State, I felt a shift in the dynamics in the athletic department there,” he said. “We would have run in sometimes with the football staff and the football coaches. I don't know if it was ego or it was territorial.”
He said Wyoming has been the opposite.
“One of the things that I think I fell in love with here is that I think the sports do care about each other,” Branch said. “I get those guys coming to our wrestling matches. I see it! Coach Jay [Sawvel] comes in. I mean, he makes tons of our wrestling matches. He sends me messages all the time.”
Branch attends athletic events across multiple disciplines at UW, and on the day PokesNews.com interviewed him, he was going to attend a tennis match later that afternoon to support the tennis program.
That support has deepened his connection to Wyoming and, in many ways, to the future beyond coaching. In fact, Branch can see himself staying in Wyoming long after his coaching days are over.
“It's made me think in my head, at this point in my career, I'm like, when I retire, I want to stay here,” he said. “I want to be close to here. I want to continue supporting our programs and be a fan. I think I'll probably be a better fan than I am a coach, he joked."
We’re hoping retirement is way off in the distance!
As he heads into the 19-year mark, Mark Branch has already established his legacy as the winningest coach in school history, but also as the man who built Wyoming Wrestling into the present and the future.
About the Author:
Jeff Bugher is a third-generation Wyomingite living in Casper. He is a sportswriter and Wyoming Cowboys/Cowgirls enthusiast who is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA ) and the National Sports Media Association (NSMA). Jeff's work has been cited by Sports Illustrated, one of the world's leading sports publications.
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