LARAMIE - Wyoming again proved it can run the football.

The Cowboys showcased a vastly improved secondary with a pair of interceptions.

And quarterback Karsten Sween solidified his spot at the top of the depth chart heading into the fall.

UW had plenty to feel good about after the Brown knocked off the Gold 20-3 to wrap up new coach Dave Christensen's first spring, though it didn't take him long to narrow his focus to the most glaring problem on Saturday at War Memorial Stadium.

"There were some good things and some bad things," Christensen said. "But I was disappointed in our ability to catch the football. If you're going to play wide receiver in this offense, you better be able to catch the ball and you'd better have courage.

"I saw some things turned down, I saw some drops, and that's got to be corrected or somebody's going to have to find another position to play."

That's certainly not an idle threat considering how critical the passing game is in the spread offense, and just about every receiver could have been included in the postgame criticism.

Brandon Stewart was electric on a 15-yard touchdown run on a reverse and finished with five catches for 49 yards, but the sophomore also coughed up four or five other balls that should have been caught.

David Leonard hauled in three passes and a touchdown to cap off an impressive drive late in the fourth quarter, but he had only one other catch up that point and had some drop issues as well.

And though Justin Morgan has had a productive spring for the most part, he finished it with a dreadful performance - twice dropping multiple attempts on the same drive.

UW was playing without starters Greg Bolling and Donate Morgan, had to battle a driving wind and cold conditions and didn't have the most accurate day from its quarterbacks, but the receivers didn't look elsewhere for blame and didn't try to justify the problems.

"Well, we can't give excuses," Leonard said. "That's on us. We didn't focus, we didn't concentrate enough, when it's a windy day like that you just have to put 100 percent concentration into catching it - you've got to catch first and run second.

"So there are no excuses, and that's something we have to work on in the offseason with the quarterbacks, and now it's time to work again. There's really no break because we want to win a championship, so we're going to work and this summer we're going to be out there catching a lot of passes so that doesn't happen on game day."

Christensen did his best to simulate one on Saturday, breaking out last season's jerseys, keeping a real score and queuing up both music and video highlights.

But in the midst of his overall of the program, at least one part of the offense looked far too similar to the last couple years.

"Well, you know, we've made the point with them that playing catch is what this offense is [about]," Christensen said. "You've got to throw the ball, you've got to catch the ball, and they weren't all the greatest throws in the world, but I don't think the wind affected us that much.

"Our ability to catch the football was just horrible today, and that wasn't the wind. Some of that was courage, which I challenged them [about] afterwards, but the bottom line is we're going to put players out there that can catch the football. If you can't play catch, you can't play in this offense.

"They've got three months to get that figured out, work on it and develop their skills or we'll find somebody else and put them in there."

That's at least one thing that wasn't hard to grasp.

TOUGH ENOUGH: Adam Barry finally got a longer look at quarterback.

All the freshman really did is prove he could probably play anywhere on the field.

With backup Dax Crum out of the lineup while serving a suspension, Barry took over the reps under center for the Gold Team, and though he struggled in the passing game he reminded Christensen again that he's not afraid of contact.

"He took a pretty good hit in the first series and had to get his chin stitched up, but I guarantee you one thing, he's a tough kid," Christensen said. "I think he got it sewed up and got it popped open again and he just kept wanting to go back out there.

"That showed me something about his toughness."

It might eventually make him valuable at another position, particularly since he's likely to be stuck behind Karsten Sween and Dax Crum heading into the summer with two more highly-touted passers on the way in the fall.

His 7-of-24 passing day for 64 yards and one interception didn't help matters any, but if the versatility Barry showed on the scout team is any indication, he could contribute elsewhere if he can't at quarterback.

"We talk about guys having courage, and he showed me some courage [Saturday]," Christensen said. "I'd like to find some other guys that have the same kind of courage that he displayed out there."

PRO DAY: Ward Dobbs might not have the most impressive physical numbers, and the graduated linebacker is definitely a longshot to go in the late rounds of the NFL Draft today.

But he had one last chance Saturday to show what kind of numbers he can produce on the field, and in his limited work with the Gold Team Dobbs piled up four more tackles and broke up a pass - though it definitely wasn't a pro audition.

"There's not much I can do about it now," Dobbs said. "I just wanted to get out here and have some fun with the guys. I don't know what's going to happen.

"I'm not really thinking about it much - just from the fact that it happens, it happens."

BUMPS AND BRUISES: The damage is done now.

UW appeared to make it through the final workout of the spring without adding to the lengthy disabled list, and now Christensen can exhale and let the Cowboys get healthy again.

"Nobody else can get hurt now for the next two months," he said. "Now, I wish we had more time, I wish we'd had the ability to get more players out there. We had a lot of guys that were injured that we didn't get a good evaluation on, some of them we know are established players, but everybody needs the work.

"Hopefully when fall comes we'll have a lot more bodies and guys won't have to get as many reps, we'll practice a little bit differently when we get to fall."

Contact sports reporter Austin Ward at (307) 266-0634 or austin.ward@trib.com.