The 2021 Casper Star-Tribune Super 25 was released on Friday. Here are the first team, second team and third team selections.
The offensive and defensive players of the year, along with the coach of the year, will be announced at Friday’s Super 25 banquet in Casper.
The 2021 team will be added to the Super 25 listings here in the next few days.
–patrick
The Casper Star-Tribune on Thursday released its annual Super 25 teams, recognizing the best high school football players in the state regardless of classification.
The newspaper released its first-team, second-team and third-team selections.
At the Super 25 banquet on Thursday in Casper, Cheyenne East’s Graedyn Buell Buell was recognized as the offensive player of the year, Thunder Basin’s Caleb Driskill as the defensive player of the year and Powell’s Aaron Papich as coach of the year.
This is the 29th year of the Super 25. For previous Super 25 first team selections and for this year’s first-team picks, click here.
–patrick
The Casper Star-Tribune announced its annual Super 25 selections on Friday.
This year’s first-team Super 25 selections included players from 17 programs: Big Horn, Buffalo, Cody, Cokeville, Douglas, Evanston, Glenrock, Greybull, Jackson, Kelly Walsh, Mountain View, Natrona, Sheridan, Star Valley, Thunder Basin, Torrington and Upton-Sundance.
Glenrock’s Tucker Bopp, Big Horn’s Kade Eisele and Seth Mullinax, Torrington’s Bryan Lemmon and Kelly Walsh’s Brock Spiegelberg, all seniors, were all named to the Super 25 first team for the second time.
The paper also announced its second-team and third-team Super 25 picks.
The annual offensive player of the year, defensive player of the year and coach of the year awards will be announced tonight at the Super 25 banquet in Casper.
Previous Super 25 first-team selections are available here.
–patrick
The Wyoming Coaches Association has released all five classifications of all-state football teams.
Five players — Kaycee’s Mark Largent, Mountain View’s Jason Stoddard, Pine Bluffs’ Haize Fornstrom, Snake River’s J.D. Corson and Upton-Sundance’s Dawson Butts — were recognized as all-state selections for the third time.
The listings for all five classifications are on the all-state page.
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The Casper Star-Tribune’s Super 25 team, recognizing the top 25 players regardless of classification, was released on Friday. The team is now listed on the Super 25 page.
–patrick
Note: This post was originally written and published on Oct. 10, 2007, at the now-defunct Sports Goulash site for the Casper Star-Tribune and trib.com.
Friday’s game between Natrona County and Sheridan is the renewal of a rivalry that dates back nearly a century. And for a time, the two teams battled not only for a victory, but for the “Queen Marie Trophy.”
What was it? Well, here is this excerpt from the Nov. 11, 1943 Casper Tribune-Herald (an old cousin of the current Casper Star-Tribune):
“Several years ago when the local citizens were looking around for some trophy as a stake for the annual Armistice Day games the late Queen Marie of Rumania happened to be passing through the city. She was asked to autograph a football which she graciously did and since that time the autographed pigskin has been the highly prized award of the winner of the annual Armistice Day football game between Casper and Sheridan.
“The somewhat faded pigskin is carried back and forth between the two cities as a token of their victories. It is believed to be the only such trophy in the state where two teams annually battle for the possession, and it has become a tradition.
“The honored pigskin has changed hands often. The football games played between the Broncs and the Mustangs are the fiercest fought games of the season.”
Then there’s this, from a preview of the 1944 Casper-Sheridan game in the Star-Herald:
“The team which won three years in successions was to have permanent possession. Casper won permanent possession but later put the trophy up again and they are still playing for the football.”
The question now becomes: Where is this football now? Is it in the trophy case at either NCHS or Sheridan? Is it on a dusty mantlepiece in someone’s home, or tucked away in a forgotten box in an attic? Or was the football overlooked and carelessly thrown away several decades ago?
Personally, I have no idea. Google “Queen Marie Trophy” and nothing comes up. If I’m not mistaken, if you look in the trophy cases at both Natrona County and Sheridan, you’ll have similar success.
If the football can be found between now and Friday, and put on display during the contest, I’m sure both schools would be more than happy to renew this tradition.
For now, though, it’s a matter of finding it.
–patrick
The Casper Star-Tribune released its 26th annual Super 25 team this week, representing the staff’s choice for the 25 best football players in Wyoming regardless of classification, position or year in school. This year’s selections:
T.J. Abraham, 5-8, 155, sr, Powell
Drew Boedecker, 6-3, 175, sr, Sheridan
Austin Clemetson, 5-9, 180, jr, Gillette
Dane Covington, 6-1, 155, sr, Mountain View
Cooper Fargen, 6-1, 200, sr, Glenrock
Dawson Forcella, 6-1, 200, sr, Greybull
Matt Fowler, 6-0, 205, sr, Rock Springs
Brady Fullerton, 6-0, 147, sr, Riverton
Logan Harris, 6-3, 285, sr, Torrington
Eric Jamerman, 6-2, 170, sr, Douglas
Oaklan Jenkins, 5-11, 175, sr, Rock Springs
Brennan Kutterer, 6-2, 200, sr, Tongue River
Ty Larson, 6-1, 170, sr, Douglas
Ruger Lewis, 5-9, 165, sr, Pine Bluffs
Nolan McCafferty, 5-11, 200, sr, Big Horn
Collin McGinley, 6-0, 230, sr, Star Valley
Madden Pikula, 5-10, 185, sr, Gillette
Tom Robitaille, 6-1, 201, sr, Natrona
Garrett Schwindt, 5-7, 157, sr, Glenrock
McCabe Smith, 5-10, 220, sr, Star Valley
Coy Steel, 5-9, 175, sr, Sheridan
John Sullivan, 5-11, 195, sr, Upton-Sundance
Lane Tucker, 6-4, 255, sr, Gillette
Blake Waite, 5-8, 210, sr, Green River
Colton Williams, 5-11, 175, sr, Big Horn
Williams was named the state’s offensive player of the year; Tucker was named the defensive player of the year; and Will Gray of Pine Bluffs was named the coach of the year.
–patrick
The Casper Star-Tribune named its annual Super 25 team on Thursday. Full bios on first-team selections are available here. This year’s first-team selections include:
T.J. Abraham, 5-8, 150, jr, RB/OLB/PR, Powell
Jeff Burroughs, 6-1, 230, sr, QB/OLB/PR, Southeast
Josh Calvert, 6-0, 215, sr, OL/MLB, Wheatland
Evan Coon, 6-0, 190, sr, RB/LB, Sheridan
Tyler Cornwell, 5-10, 205, sr, RB/OLB/KR, Thermopolis
Dontae Crow, 5-9, 175, sr, WR/CB/K/P/KR, Sheridan
Theo Dawson, 6-2, 220, sr, RB/MLB, Jackson
Matt Fowler, 5-11, 195, jr, RB/LB/KR, Rock Springs
Blake Godwin, 6-0, 175, sr, QB/S, Sheridan
Logan Harris, 6-3, 255, jr, OT/DT, Torrington
Reese Hiibel, 6-0, 160, sr, QB/S, Star Valley
Dalton Holst, 6-3, 180, sr, QB/S, Gillette
Dillon Lyons, 5-9, 180, sr, RB/LB/LS, Tongue River
Nolan McCafferty, 5-11, 195, jr, FB/MLB, Big Horn
Rourke McPeters, 5-11, 180, sr, TE/OLB, Upton-Sundance
Skyler Miller, 5-11, 195, sr, RB/LB/LS, Torrington
Madden Pikula, 5-10, 180, jr, WR/S/PR/KR, Gillette
McCabe Smith, 5-11, 230, jr, G/NT, Star Valley
Elijah Stewart, 6-0, 190, sr, FB/LB, Glenrock
Zach Taylor, 5-11, 220, sr, RB/MLB, Gillette
Tyler Vendetti, 5-10, 155, sr, QB/CB, Green River
Cody Wilkinson, 6-2, 185, sr, TE/DE/K/P, Natrona
Connor Wilkinson, 5-10, 145, sr, RB/S/KR/PR, Shoshoni
Nathan Willis, 6-2, 190, sr, FB/OLB, Wheatland
Colten Wunder, 5-8, 150, sr, RB/LB/PR/KR, Lingle
The offensive player of the year, defensive player of the year and coach of the year will be announced at the Super 25 banquet tonight in Casper.
–patrick
Through 2014, the Casper Star-Tribune’s Super 25 squads have had 600 total selections.
As the Super 25 closes in on its 25th anniversary in 2015, and the 25th anniversary team set to be released next week after the state championship games, I figured now would be a good time to break down the player selection and see how often players from each classification are chosen.
When I worked at the Star-Tribune — and was the director of Super 25 selections — for the 2005-08 football seasons, we did not have specific quotas. But at the same time, we worked hard to have a team that represented the totality of the state and its best players.
I looked at schools’ current classifications, not historical classification, and found the Super 25 squad definitely leans heavy to big schools — but not as heavily as you might think.
Current 4A schools: 257 selections, 42.8%
Current 3A schools: 153 selections, 25.5%
Current 2A schools: 115 selections, 19.2%
Current 1A 11-man schools: 65 selections, 10.8%
Current 1A six-man schools: 10 selections, 1.7%
Annually, this means that 4A schools average 10.7 of the 25 selections; 3A gets 6.4; 2A gets 4.8; 1A 11-man gets 2.7 and 1A six-man gets 0.4.
That said, the numbers to show a clear tilt to 4A schools. And that makes sense — the biggest schools, with the most available players, should produce the most Super 25 players.
However, if we add up all the ADMs (enrollment numbers used for classification) and look at each football classification, we can see a different picture emerge:
4A: 14,463 (10 schools) (54.4 percent of total enrollment)
3A: 6805.5 (12 schools) (25.6 percent)
2A: 2935.75 (14 schools) (11 percent)
1A 11-man: 1720.35 (16 schools, including opt-ups and co-ops) (6.5 percent)
1A six-man: 679.5 (13 schools) (2.6 percent)
Total, all football-sponsoring schools: 26,604.1
The easy way to look at this is if the percent of Super 25 selections is lower than the total percent of ADM, that means it’s tougher to be selected from that classification. Reverse it, and it’s easier.
Toughest classifications to gain Super 25 recognition: 4A (54.4 percent of ADM but only 42.8 percent of Super 25 selections); 1A six-man (2.6 percent of ADM but only 1.7 percent of Super 25 selections).
Representative classifications for Super 25 recognition: 3A (25.6 percent of ADM and 25.5 percent of Super 25 players).
Easiest classifications to gain Super 25 recognition: 2A (only 11 percent of ADM but 19.2 percent of Super 25 players); 1A 11-man (only 6.5 percent of ADM but 10.8 percent of Super 25 selections).
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Another way to look at Super 25 selections is via the success of the team for which that player plays. It makes sense that teams playing for winning teams are more likely to be recognized as Super 25 players — the best players, the logic goes, play on the best teams.
But being picked Super 25 from a losing team has proven more and more difficult to achieve. Here’s a list of Super 25 players chosen from teams with records below .500; it’s gotten tougher to do over the years:
1991: Three. Pat Fackrell, Evanston (3-5); John Hardee, Douglas (3-5); George Reddicks, Wheatland (3-4).
1992: Three. Eric Baker, Lander (3-5); K.C. Lehr, Big Piney (3-4); Monte Murdock, Natrona (1-7).
1993: Four. Wes Davis, Evanston (4-6); Mike Fackrell, Evanston (4-6); Anthony Gipson, Green River (4-5); David Lundberg, Cheyenne Central (3-5).
1994: One. Shawn Kelley, Cody (3-5).
1995: Three. Mark Curry, Kelly Walsh (3-5); Aaron Milnes, Wheatland (3-5); Dan Olind, Wheatland (3-5).
1996: Six. Joel Christensen, Pinedale (3-5); Quincy Douglass, Cheyenne Central (3-5); Justin Graham, Gillette (4-5); Garth Hamblin, Rock Springs (3-5); Rocky Kirk, Kelly Walsh (2-6); Jason McAfee, Rock Springs (3-5).
1997: Four. Fred Capshaw, Rock Springs (4-5); Jon Dawson, Cheyenne Central (2-6); Kasey Jones, Thermopolis (4-6); Luke Klemke, Douglas (3-5).
1998: Five. Grant Curry, Lingle (3-5); Shane Farella, Sheridan (3-6); Clint Franklin, Powell (3-5); Cody Hostetter, Newcastle (2-5); Craig Suter, Rock Springs (4-5).
1999: Two. Mike Crosland, Kemmerer (1-7); Jeff Martini, Sheridan (4-5).
2000: One. Junior Simpson, Cheyenne Central (4-5).
2001: Two. Craig Despain, Kelly Walsh (3-6); Brady Hollaway, Douglas (3-7).
2002: Two. Joe Killpack, Green River (4-5); Bryce Scanlon, Evanston (0-9).
2003: One. Alex Obrecht, Cheyenne Central (3-6).
2004: Three. Chris Moberly, Kelly Walsh (3-6); Julius Rios, Torrington (3-6); Wes Scanlon, Evanston (2-7).
2005: Two. Dan Bather, Wheatland (3-6); Reece Hall, Sheridan (2-7).
2006: One. Bryan Guthrie, Cheyenne East (5-6).
2007: Three. Braden Benson, Gillette (5-6); Zach Booth, Star Valley (4-7); Drew Rollin, Rock Springs (4-7).
2008: Four. Matt Baker, Lander (4-5); Matt Craft, Riverside (4-5); Grant Geiser, Lovell (4-5); Brad Ramsey, Cheyenne Central (3-6).
2009: None.
2010: One. Ward Anderson, Wheatland (4-5).
2011: One. Terry Jackson, Kelly Walsh (2-7).
2012: None.
2013: One. Tayton Montgomery, Cheyenne Central (4-6).
2014: One. Cooper Mirich, Cheyenne Central (4-6).
In all, 54 of 600 — or 9 percent — of Super 25 selections come from losing teams. Of those, 33 came from 4A schools. Only eight came from 2A or 1A schools as classified at the time.
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I’ve been on the other side of this. I know it’s much tougher to choose a Super 25 team than it is to critique it. Really, the first 17 or 18 selections seem pretty easy, but the last seven or eight are brutal. The Super 40, or the Super 50, or the Super 10, would be no easier.
The goal of the Super 25 when I had a say in the squad was the top 25 players, full stop, regardless of the classification of the school or the success of the team.
Usually, though, the best players play for the biggest schools and play on the best teams.
The last 24 years of Super 25 selections reflects that.
–patrick
The Casper Star-Tribune named its 24th annual Super 25 team on Friday. The Super 25 recognizes the best players in the state regardless of classification, position or year in school. The Super 25 first team for 2014 is made up of:
Tevis Bartlett, 6-3, 210, sr, QB/S, Cheyenne East
Peter Bergman, 6-9, 285, sr, LT/DT, Natrona
Stevann Brown, 5-9, 165, sr, RB/DB/KR, Natrona
Dalton Burgener, 5-11, 170, sr, FB/NG, Douglas
Cade Covington, 6-2, 230, sr, RB/LB, Mountain View
Theo Dawson, 6-2, 215, jr, RB/MLB, Jackson
Calder Forcella, 5-10, 195, sr, QB/LB/P, Greybull
Brandon Fullerton, 6-1, 165, sr, QB/S/KR, Riverton
Josh Harshman, 6-4, 205, sr, QB/OLB, Natrona
Austin Houskeeper, 6-0, 195, sr, QB/LB, Mountain View
Christian Mayer, 6-2, 196, sr, WR/S/KR, Big Horn
Cap McClure, 6-4, 280, sr, OT/DT, Cody
Skyler Miller, 5-11, 180, jr, RB/LB, Torrington
Cooper Mirich, 6-1, 215, sr, RB/LB, Cheyenne Central
Carter Myers, 6-1, 215, sr, RB/LB/K/P, Cody
Bay Parks, 5-11, 220, sr, FB/DE, Douglas
Jace Petersen, 6-0, 205, sr, QB/MLB, Cokeville
Kerry Powers, 6-0, 220, sr, RB/MLB, Big Horn
Joe Shassetz, 5-10, 160, sr, WR/CB/KR, Sheridan
Riley Stringer, 6-1, 260, sr, OG/DT, Powell
Zach Taylor, 5-11, 211, jr, RB/LB/KR, Gillette
James Teichert, 5-10, 155, sr, RB/OLB/K/KR, Cokeville
Derick VandeBossche, 6-0, 170, sr, TB/LB/KR/K, Lusk
Logan Wilson, 6-2, 205, sr, WR/DB/P, Natrona
Ben Wisdorf, 6-1, 185, sr, WR/FS/OLB, Cheyenne East
The Super 25 offensive player of the year, defensive player of the year and coach of the year were recognized at the Super 25 banquet Friday night in Casper. Mayer was named offensive player of the year, Harshman defensive player of the year and Cody’s Matt McFadden was named coach of the year.
The Star-Tribune also selected Super 25 second and third teams.
For a full list of former Super 25 selections back to 1991, click here.
–patrick
The Casper Star-Tribune on Friday released its 23rd annual Super 25 football selections.
The Star-Tribune staff picked players for first-team, second-team, third-team and honorable mention selections. Full selections are available in Friday’s Star-Tribune or at trib.com.
The first-team selections were:
Sterling Baker, sr, RB/LB, Dubois
Logan Barker, sr, RB/LB, Douglas
Tevis Bartlett, jr, QB/S, Cheyenne East
Taven Bryan, sr, OT/DT, Natrona
Cade Covington, jr, RB/LB, Mountain View
Hayden Cragoe, sr, QB/FS, Powell
Kirk Durtsche, sr, QB/DB, Kelly Walsh
Austin Fort, sr, QB/S/K, Gillette
Sam Gertsch, sr, WR/TE/LB, Star Valley
Cameron Johnson, sr, WR/S/P, Cheyenne East
Garrett Lynch, sr, WR/FB/TE/DE, Powell
Austyn Matthews, sr, QB/S, Douglas
Connor McCafferty, sr, QB/DB, Big Horn
Tayton Montgomery, jr, WR/CB, Cheyenne Central
Carter Myers, jr, RB/LB, Cody
Jace Petersen, jr, QB/MLB, Cokeville
Dillon Pickett, sr, RB/MLB, Lovell
Travis Romsa, sr, OT/DE, Burns
Critter Ruwart, sr, QB/S, Wheatland
Daniel Sessions, sr, RB/S/LB/KR, Sheridan
Riley Stringer, jr, OL/DL, Powell
Brock Teichert, sr, OL/DL/TE, Cokeville
Sam Turner, sr, QB/LB, Natrona
Matthew VandeBossche, sr, RB/S/P/PR, Lusk
Billy Williams, sr, RB/LB, Gillette
Be sure to pick up a copy of Friday’s Star-Tribune for more.
The Star-Tribune will name its offensive player of the year, defensive player of the year and coach of the year at the Super 25 banquet later this week.
–patrick