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<p>LARAMIE, Wyo. &#8212; Wanna feel old? Most of the members of the Wyoming football team hadn&#8217;t heard of Rocket Ismail Jr.&#8217; dad when he signed with the Cowboys.</p><p>&#8220;Honestly, I didn&#8217;t know anything about his dad,&#8221; junior receiver Austin Conway said. &#8220;I had met his dad, and they were telling me who he was, and I went back and watched the (Colorado) 30 for 30 and I really realized, &#8216;Oh, that was his dad.&#8217; I didn&#8217;t know.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I had known he had a pretty nice nickname,&#8221; sophomore receiver Jared Scott said, &#8220;and I was wondering where he got that from. And I kind of got the history behind that.&#8221;</p><p>The history, as we college football fans who are old enough to recall Y2K are aware, is that the elder Raghib &#8220;Rocket&#8221; Ismail was a star receiver and returner for Notre Dame, finishing second in the 1990 Heisman Trophy voting, before going on to play in the NFL and CFL.</p><p>&#8220;(Receivers coach Mike) Grant let us know who he was,&#8221; junior receiver C.J. Johnson said. &#8220;I think my dad mentioned something to me as well. I mean, he definitely got all the athletic ability from somewhere.&#8221;</p><p>Both Grant and Johnson&#8217;s father played college ball at Nebraska in the &#8217;90s. Grant said he almost roomed with Ismail on a visit to Notre Dame.</p><p>By the time the current class of Cowboys were born, though, Ismail&#8217;s professional career had nearly ended. Wyoming offensive coordinator Brent Vigen joked that he was disappointed in today&#8217;s youth for not knowing Ismail Jr.&#8217;s father.</p><p>But Wyoming hasn&#8217;t been disappointed in Ismail Jr.&#8217;s showing this fall camp.</p><p>&#8220;Rocket has the playmaker ability, for sure,&#8221; Scott told the Casper Star-Tribune. &#8220;We&#8217;ve just been trying to get him in quick and learning as much as he can, especially with the offense. But with Rocket&#8217;s ability and speed, he can make those long plays for us for sure. Like everyone in our room, we&#8217;re trying to get our consistency up, but we definitely like Rocket&#8217;s game and where he can fit in with us.&#8221;</p><p>Ismail was a late addition to Wyoming&#8217;s 2018 signing class. The Cowboys were expecting to sign three-star California prep receiver J.J. Tucker on National Signing Day, but he flipped to Oregon at the last minute after the Ducks wound up needing a receiver.</p><p>Instead, the Cowboys brought on Ismail, a Cisco (Texas) College transfer who had planned on signing with Northern Colorado.</p><p>&#8220;We were on him for a while,&#8221; Vigen said of Ismail. &#8220;That was the next guy we were going to go on for a while. It wasn&#8217;t a matter of all of a sudden we got to that last weekend in recruiting, we didn&#8217;t get the guy we thought we were going to get and then we panicked into finding a guy. We were on him and tracked him and Coach Grant had met with him and his dad.</p><p>&#8220;So I think we had a good sense for if we have to go down that route, here&#8217;s a junior college kid at least we feel like we know a fair amount about, like where he comes from, like where he&#8217;s going, that type of thing. So usually when you make those mistakes, it&#8217;s because you don&#8217;t have any of that information on the front end. So at least going into that post-signing day period, we knew what we were dealing with, and fortunately it&#8217;s worked out to this point.&#8221;</p><p>Ismail appears to have impressed on the field so far.</p><p>&#8220;Coach Grant tells me he&#8217;s crazy fast, and he&#8217;s very athletic,&#8221; said Johnson, who has not been with the team this fall because he is recovering from a knee injury. &#8220;I mean, I have seen some of practice, and he&#8217;s got what it takes. He&#8217;s just another piece of the puzzle that I&#8217;m excited to see.&#8221;</p><p>Ismail has some of his father&#8217;s off-field energy as well.</p><p>&#8220;He brings a different kind of element,&#8221; Conway said. &#8220;He&#8217;s an excitement guy, an electric guy. He fires guys up, and he&#8217;s the type of guy we need around us.&#8221;</p><p>Said Vigen: &#8220;Getting a chance to meet his dad and all that, I think you got a sense for, yeah, he&#8217;s Rocket Jr., but I think he really emulates his dad&#8217;s persona, from a confidence standpoint, from a competitive standpoint. He had a long road to get here, but he&#8217;s here, and more than anything, hopefully he makes a lot of plays for us.&#8221;</p><p>And at least there was one Cowboy who didn&#8217;t need a lesson on Ismail Jr.&#8217;s dad. Freshman quarterback Ryan Marquez&#8217;s father, Mike, played running back for Colorado shortly before they faced Ismail&#8217;s Fighting Irish in consecutive Orange Bowls.</p><p>&#8220;But no one else had a clue,&#8221; Vigen said. &#8220;And part of that&#8217;s probably (because) he took the CFL route. But yeah, we are getting old, that&#8217;s for sure.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Brandon Foster</p><p>Casper Star-Tribune</p></bylineMeta></div>

Rocket who? New team learns about Ismail Jr. and his dad