Wyoming DTs Dante Drake, Caleb Robinson Out for Season
- Jeff Bugher
- Jul 28
- 3 min read
LARAMIE, Wyo. - University of Wyoming head football coach Jay Sawvel delivered some devastating news during his fall camp press conference on Monday. Sawvel revealed that two defensive tackles, sophomore Dante Drake and graduate Caleb Robinson, will miss the 2025 season due to Achilles injuries suffered during offseason training.
“Dante Drake…He’ll miss the season,” Sawvel said during his post-practice media session. “Caleb Robinson had the same kind of injury about three weeks later. He will miss the season. Both Achilles tendons, and both were in the shuttle run.”
The shuttle run is a conditioning drill players in Wyoming’s program have done for years, without any history of serious injury. That made this pair of injuries all the more shocking for Sawvel and his staff.
“This is my sixth summer here. We’ve never had a guy get an ankle, a hip flexor, a groin…anything in it,” he said. “And I was standing 10 feet away when Dante Drake did his. OK, that was a one-off. And you’re like, man, that’s just - that’s wild. We’ve never seen that happen.”
The situation grew even more concerning when Robinson went down three weeks later.
“Caleb Robinson did it in a very similar way,” Sawvel explained. “We’ve never had that type of thing.”
In response, the program immediately took action to try to mitigate any unknown risk factors.
“We changed all the cleats on everybody that’s above a certain weight,” Sawvel said. “We don’t know the cause. I think if we knew the cause, whoever figured it out would probably be working for the Indiana Pacers or something like that.”
The back-to-back injuries prompted broader reflection from the staff, including a look into past incidents. Sawvel mentioned previous Achilles injuries suffered by defensive tackle Lucas Samsula in fall camp last year, and defensive end Jordan Turnbull in the spring, but emphasized there were no warning signs in any of the cases.
“There was no precursor to this. There was no calf injury, there was no hamstring,” he said. “There was nothing that would tell you any kind of marker that this was going to happen.”
The injuries are particularly painful for the Cowboys' interior defensive line group, which was already tight on numbers.
“It hurts…you’re trying to build it up, right? And we felt like… we’re in a really good spot,” Sawvel said. “We’ve got six guys that could play. And now we’ve got four.”
Sawvel did note that help is eventually on the way. Sheridan, Wyo., native Defensive lineman Alex Haswell is expected to resume practice at the end of August and return to game action by mid-September.
“That still leaves us three guys that are 295-plus pounds inside, which we still haven’t had in the past with Lucas Samsula, Jayden Williams, and Ben Florentine,” Sawvel said.
The silver lining is that there’s no indication the injuries were due to overtraining or abnormal workout routines.
The mystery behind the timing and circumstances lead to a search for solutions to prevent further injuries.
“We’re mystified as to the reason why,” Sawvel said. “We went into a full-blown panic mode in the building. Whatever we’re doing... we're going to change it.”
For now, Wyoming presses forward, with some lingering concerns at defensive tackle, but Sawvel sounded confident about moving forward.
“It’s unfortunate for those two guys,” Sawvel said.
About Dante Drake
Standing at 6'3" and weighing 292 pounds, Dante Drake is a sophomore defensive tackle from Robinson, Texas. After redshirting in 2023, Drake saw action in 11 games for the Cowboys in 2024, tallying eight total tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss. His breakout performance came against San Diego State, where he notched a career-high five tackles and 1.5 TFLs. A former three-star recruit out of Robinson High School, Drake chose Wyoming over offers from Louisiana Tech, Nebraska, and UTSA. He is majoring in professional sales at the University of Wyoming.
About Caleb Robinson
At 6'2" and 295 pounds, Caleb Robinson is a graduate student defensive tackle from Omaha, Nebraska. A seasoned veteran, Robinson has appeared in 33 career games for the Cowboys, totaling 41 tackles and 2.0 tackles for loss. He missed the 2024 season due to an injury suffered in the spring but was a steady presence on the defensive line from 2020 to 2023. A former standout at Omaha Burke High School, Robinson helped lead his team to a state title as a junior and earned First Team All-Metro honors. He is currently majoring in Communications at the University of Wyoming.
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