For Kaleb Driggers and Junior Nogueira, the 2025 PRCA regular season team roping title came at the end of a year marked by triumph, setbacks and a comeback story for the decade.
Driggers and Nogueira, the 2021 and 2022 world champs who also hold the regular season earnings record of $227,878 in 2022, closed out the 2025 season with the Governor’s Cup win in Sioux Falls for $32,000 a man, taking them into this year’s NFR as the No. 1 team with $198,497.72. A year that started with a strong spring, highlighted by their second straight Bob Feist Invitational win for $154,000 and the American Rodeo title for another $100,000 apiece, took a sudden turn when Nogueira suffered a horse accident while practicing May 12, fracturing his right tibia and damaging the ligaments around his knee.
“We didn’t have a very good winter, and we always slow down in April and May from rodeoing and enjoy time at home with our family, only going to a couple rodeos and a few jackpots,” Driggers, 35, explained. “So, we rely on the summer run pretty heavily, and before we were getting ready to leave Junior had a horse accident and broke his leg. I was telling him give it time to heal and come out for Reno, but he wasn’t having any part of it. So, we started in the middle of June, and we had some success early on; the first four rodeos we won two of them and second at the other two. So that kind of caught us back up to where we needed to be.”
Driggers and Nogueira returned to the ProRodeo scene post-injury with a $14,041-a-man weekend June 11-15, which skyrocketed them from 40th in the world standings to Top 15 territory. The remainder of the summer saw another $120,635 a man, bringing them to No. 5 and 3, respectively, in the world standings heading into Sioux Falls, which was the goal all along.
Driggers & Nogueira’s 2025 ProRodeo wins
- Won the Lewiston (Idaho) Roundup
- Won the Larimer County Fair & Rodeo (Loveland, Colo.)
- Won the Deadwood (S.D.) Days Of ’76 Rodeo
- Won the Wild Bill Hickok Rodeo (Abilene, Kan.)
- Won the Eagle (Idaho) Rodeo
- Co-champion at the Horse Heaven Roundup Rodeo (Kennewick, Wash.)
- Co-champion at the Cache County Fair And Rodeo (Logan, Utah)
- Co-champion at the Vernal (Utah) Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo
“We both have families now, and they are our number one priority, so we wasn’t real concerned with going into the NFR in first place,” Driggers said. “I knew we needed to have a chance at Sioux Falls, so we put a lot of emphasis on the tour rodeos to make sure we was qualified for the Governors Cup.”
After a no-time in Round 1 in Sioux Falls Sept. 26, Driggers and Nogueira bounced back with the Round 2 win with a 3.7 for $11,911 a man. That 3.7 was enough to punch their tickets to the eight-man Semifinals, too, which they won with a 4.1-second run. They sealed the deal on the Governor’s Cup with. 3.8-second run in the four-man Finals for $32,000 apiece.
“Four man was tough, as always,” Driggers said. “We were guaranteed $16,000, so we were in a good spot to try and go for first. We had the same steer we was 3.7 on the night before, so I had a lot of confidence that we could pull it off.”
Perspective
Driggers has roped at 12 NFRs since he joined the PRCA in 2008, finishing 16th in his rookie season in 2009 with Brad Culpepper but winning the regular season in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2022 and 2023. He won his first gold buckle in 2021 after finishing second in the world in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and third in 2019, and he won his second in 2022.
Nogueira, the 2016 World Champion All-Around Cowboy for his joint efforts in the heeling and tie-down roping, joined the PRCA in 2014 and made the Finals for the first time that year. He’s not missed the Finals since joining the PRCA and he’s won the regular season seven times.
