School: Pinedale
Nickname: Wranglers
Colors: green and white
Stadium: Korfanta Field
State championship: 1975
Times worth remembering: Some of the Wranglers’ best seasons came in the eight-year span from 1968-75. Six of those eight seasons were winning seasons, including 9-0-1 and a mythical state title in 1970 and 10-0 and a Class A title in the return year of playoffs in 1975. Pinedale was also 8-1 in 1972 and tied for fourth in the final statewide poll.
Times worth forgetting: From 1992-95, the Wranglers had what can kindly be called a tough stretch. Pinedale won just twice in those four seasons and lost 26 times, at one point losing 19 consecutive games. Eleven of those losses were shutout losses, including five shutout losses in the 1994 season in which Pinedale scored just 20 points.
Best team: The return of playoffs in 1975 gave the overlooked Southwest teams a chance to show what they could do on a statewide stage. And that season, the Wranglers proved just how tough those Southwest teams could be. Pinedale rolled to a 10-0 record, including a 6-0 overtime victory over Basin in the semifinals and a 10-8 nail-biting win over Saratoga in the Class A title game. The 1975 Wranglers had six first-team all-state selections; no other team had more than two.
Biggest win: The Wranglers’ last state championship victory was one for the ages. Danner Boone’s 25-yard field goal with 1:03 remaining in the 1975 Class B championship gave Pinedale a 10-8 victory over Saratoga in Rawlins. The winning kick was set up by a Saratoga fumble deep in Pinedale territory; Neil Reed scored the Wranglers’ lone touchdown in the defensive struggle.
Heartbreaker: The 1987 Class 2A semifinals pitted two steamrollers — 7-0 Lovell vs. 8-0 Pinedale. And in a case where somebody’s dreams had to be squashed, the Wranglers were on the wrong side of the ‘roller. The Bulldogs beat the Wranglers 20-7 — it was the most points Pinedale gave up in any game all season, and the fewest they scored — and one of the Wranglers’ best teams had to watch as Lovell went on to win it all. For some consolation, five Wranglers made the all-state first team, second only to the Bulldogs’ six.
School: Wright
Nickname: Panthers
Colors: black and gold
Stadium: Panther Field at Battlecat Stadium
State championships: none
Times worth remembering: After some lean years in the 1990s, the Panthers got untracked in the 2000s, running off five straight winning seasons from 2002-06. The run was highlighted by a 9-1 season in 2004 — a season cut short by a 13-8 loss to Mountain View in the semifinals — and a 7-4 season in 2005 that was capped with an appearance in the 2A championship game.
Times worth forgetting: The ‘90s were not kind to Wright, which didn’t have a winning season for the entire decade. The problem came at the start of the decade — the Panthers went 0-8 in 1990 and 0-9 in 1991. In only one game in that stretch did the Panthers score more than 13 points in any game — and only twice did they hold their opponents to less than 14.
Best team: Although the final result of the season doesn’t really reflect it, the 2004 Panthers were probably the most talented bunch the Wright school has put on the field. The Panthers were unbeaten in the regular season; they shut out their first six opponents and outscored their opponents 274-26. Although a 13-8 loss to Mountain View cut Wright’s season short at 9-1, the Panthers put five players, all seniors, on the first-team all-state squad.
Biggest win: In 2005, the Panthers had to prove they belonged in 2A’s upper echelon — twice. The first chance came in the second week of the season, when Wright beat two-time defending champion Big Horn 7-0 in Wright. But not quite two months later, the same two teams met again, this time in Big Horn, with a spot in the championship game at stake. Once again, it was the Panthers that came out on top, upending the favored Rams 13-7 to make it to the state title game for only the second time in school history.
Heartbreaker: It really didn’t take long for Wright to get up to speed — in fact, in their first full season of varsity play in 1985, the Panthers made the 1A championship game. However, a fumble on Big Horn’s 2-yard line in the final two minutes snuffed out the Panthers’ comeback bid in a 7-6 loss to Big Horn. It took 20 years for Wright to make it back to the championship game again.
School: Pine Bluffs
Nickname: Hornets
Colors: purple and yellow
Stadium: Carlstrum Field
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: The Hornets were a tough team to beat in the 1960s and early 1970s, going 11 years (1963-73) without a losing season. Pine Bluffs was a combined 55-29-4, including a school-best 7-1 season in 1963. That span also included two years in the Minuteman Conference in western Nebraska.
Times worth forgetting: The late 1990s were a time of constant rebuilding for the Hornets, who went a combined 7-27 from 1996-2000, including an 0-7 season in 1996. The problem wasn’t that the Hornets weren’t competitive — they were — they just couldn’t keep games close. Of those 27 losses, 22 were by at least 20 points.
Best team: By record alone, the 1963 Hornets were the best of the bunch. After losing to Glenrock 20-2 in the season opener, Pine Bluffs rattled off seven consecutive victories. The Hornets didn’t win their games by wide margins, but the offense was efficient with almost 27 points per game and four of the seven wins were by double digits.
Biggest win: Despite a 5-1 regular-season record, the Hornets had to go on the road for the first two rounds of the 1994 playoffs. After easily beating Moorcroft in the first round, the Hornets trekked to Byron to play highly rated and Northwest champion Rocky Mountain. The Hornets weren’t fazed, though — they controlled the game from beginning to end and earned a place in the state championship game with a 35-21 victory.
Heartbreaker: Just one week after the big win over Rocky Mountain, the Hornets experienced the other side of playoff football in a 17-8 loss to Cokeville in the 1A state championship — a game that started with senior Matt Davison being carted off the field in an ambulance and ended, more or less, with two devastating second-half turnovers. It was Pine Bluffs’ second championship-game loss to Cokeville in four years; the Hornets haven’t been back to a state championship game since.
School: Jackson
Nickname: Broncs
Colors: black and orange
Stadium: William T. McIntosh Stadium
State championships: 1981, 1986 and 2007
Times worth remembering: Jackson won most consistently in the 1980s, a decade in which the Broncs posted only two losing seasons in 10 years. It was also the decade that saw Jackson win two of its three state championships — a 9-0 campaign to win the 1981 title and a 6-4 season that was good enough for the 1986 championship.
Times worth forgetting: Not much of the 1990s was good to the Broncs, but the stretch from 1991-96, when Jackson went 1-7, 3-5, 1-7, 2-6, 1-7 and 0-8, was the toughest of them all. Combined in those five years, the Broncs went 8-40, and at one point failed to break double digits on offense for 12 consecutive games.
Best team: Although the Broncs twice had undefeated state champions (1981 and 2007), the 1982 team might have been the best of Jackson’s bunch. The 1982 team was better both offensively and defensively than the 1981 title team, and all that kept Jackson from a repeat championship was a late-season loss to eventual state champion Star Valley.
Biggest win: Of Jackson’s three championship-game victories, the buzz is still most electric around the 1986 title game, which Jackson won 17-16 on a field goal with 2:01 remaining by current coach Bill Wiley. The Broncs trailed 16-0 early in the third quarter, but Mike Rooks scored a pair of second-half touchdowns and the Jackson defense forced Douglas out of its offensive rhythm just in time to notch the victory.
Heartbreaker: The aforementioned 1982 team had the chance to turn Jackson into a mini-football dynasty, but that one loss — the 20-7 loss to Star Valley, in Jackson, in the second-to-last week of the season — kept the Broncs out of the playoffs altogether. Star Valley went on to beat Wheatland for the state championship; Jackson had to stay home and wonder about the opportunity it missed.
School: Thermopolis
Nickname: Bobcats
Colors: purple and yellow
Stadium: Bobcat Field
State championships: 1990, 1991 and 1992
Times worth remembering: Three years, three championships. It’s hard to do much better than the Bobcats did from 1990-92. Those three years, Thermopolis won the 2A title and had unbeaten seasons in 1990 (11-0) and ’92 (9-0) and finished 27-3 combined for all three seasons. Thermop outscored its foes by an average of 34-9 for the three seasons and notched 10 victories by shutout — and won all three championship games on its home field.
Times worth forgetting: The years leading up to the three-peat were anything but pleasant. From 1982-89, Thermopolis went 9-55. Of the losses, 18 were by shutout. The bottom came in an 0-9 1986 season in which the Bobcats were competitive but consistently on the wrong side of close games — including losses of 14-8 and 17-14.
Best team: What made the 1992 Thermopolis team unique was not only its undefeated 9-0 record, but how it won. The Bobcats were a dominating team; aside from a 28-26 win over Mountain View in the Bridger Valley, no other teams came close to touching the Bobcats in the regular season or the postseason. Thermopolis, led by 2A player of the year Colte Russell, won its games by an average score of 40-8 and held its final seven opponents to a total of 26 points.
Biggest win: Drama dripped from Thermopolis’ 21-20 overtime victory over Lovell in 1990 in the 2A championship, a game Bobcats actually never led the game until its final play and Richie Mitchell’s extra point in overtime. Rick McKinney scored both Bobcat touchdowns in regulation and Corey Wahler added the TD that led to the winning point in overtime, securing Thermopolis’ first state championship and providing the impetus for an early 1990s dynasty.
Heartbreaker: After losing in the semifinals in 1993 to end their championship run, the Bobcats appeared headed for another state championship in ’94. They came into the championship game ranked first in 2A at 9-0 and had the right to host the title contest again, this time against Kemmerer. However, Thermopolis’ offense couldn’t muster any consistent offensive threats, and Kemmerer took advantage of turnovers to post a 16-6 victory. It was the Bobcats’ best chance to win another championship; the team also lost title games in 1996 and 1997 and hasn’t returned to a title game since.
School: Arvada-Clearmont
Nickname: Panthers
Colors: blue and yellow
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: In their first football season as combined schools, Arvada and Clearmont went 3-1-1 in 1960, the only loss to the Buffalo JV squad. The Panthers later avenged that loss, and also swept a home-and-home with Big Horn and tied Tongue River.
Times worth forgetting: After dropping football after the 1962 season, A-C brought football back for 1969-71 — and went 2-18-2 in that span. The team’s only wins came over Lodge Grass, Mont., and the Gillette sophomore squad. In 1971, the team scored only 8 points in its final seven games, all Powder River Conference losses.
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School: Chugwater
Nickname: Buffaloes
Colors: blue and white
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: none
Times worth remembering: The records don’t show any Chugwater victories in 10 games…. So the closest the Buffaloes ever came, a 27-26 loss to Huntley in the final game of the 1956 season, is by default the program’s pinnacle.
Times worth forgetting: The program’s final game, the 1957 finale against Huntley, was canceled due to Chugwater’s poor field conditions.
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School: Reliance
Nickname: Pirates
Colors: maroon and white
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: none
Times worth remembering: The 1951-52 seasons were probably Reliance’s best of the ‘50s, as the Pirates went 4-2-1 and 5-2 against Class A competition. Both years, Reliance lost to Superior and Evanston, but beat the likes of Star Valley, Jackson and Green River.
Times worth forgetting: The last two years were Reliance’s toughest, especially the second-to-last year in 1956. That season, the Pirates lost their first three games by a combined score of 157-7, then canceled the rest of the season. In 1957, the Pirates went 2-4 in Class B, beating only Pinedale and Lyman.
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School: St. Stephens
Nickname: Eagles
Colors: red and white
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: none
Times worth remembering: St. Stephens only had football for nine seasons, but it didn’t take long to establish a reputation. The Eagles had six consecutive winning seasons from 1959-64, including an 8-1 season and a runner-up finish in 1961 and an 8-0 season and a mythical state championship in 1962. The ’62 team outscored its opponents 286-28.
Times worth forgetting: It took a couple years for the Eagles to learn how to play the sport, though. St. Stephens was a combined 2-11 in its first two seasons. The Eagles scored only 20 points their first season and their lone win was a 7-6 nail-biter over the Riverton JV; they improved in ’58 but still only scored 33 points for the season.
School: Hulett
Nickname: Red Devils
Colors: red and black
Stadium: Red Devil Stadium
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: Hulett was a true statewide power for two separate spans. From 1957-61, the Red Devils went 29-6 and reached the playoffs twice; from 1992-96, the Red Devils played in the state championship game four times in five years.
Times worth forgetting: Hulett’s stretch from 1972-78 was not only the worst in school history, it might be the worst in state history. In those seven seasons, Hulett went 1-56. Yes, you read that right — one win in 57 attempts. The Red Devils’ only victory in that span was a 3-0 triumph over Sundance on Oct. 11, 1974; Hulett only broke into double digits on the scoreboard eight times in those 57 games and was shut out 21 times. Then, after a brief respite with a 3-5 season in 1979, the 1980 squad went 0-7, the 1981 squad played mostly a JV schedule and the 1982 season was canceled due to a lack of players.
Best team: It’s a toss-up: The 1961 squad was Hulett’s only undefeated team and would have been in line for a state championship, except the 8-man playoff system had been abandoned the year before. The 1961 team won its six games by an average of 46-9. Conversely, the 1994 Hulett team went 8-1, winning one game by forfeit, but lost the 9-man title game to Burlington thanks to a spate of turnovers. In the seven games leading up to the championship, the Red Devils won by an average of 40-3. I’ll give the nod to the ’94 team led by hard-running fullback Alan Ista. (I might be partial to that team because I saw it play; I was the ball boy for Hulett’s 44-0 beat down of Midwest).
Biggest win: The 1992 Red Devils weren’t expected to do much, reaching the playoffs with a lackluster 4-4 record and a second-place finish in the three-team East. For the semifinals, Hulett had to hit the road to play Dubois, which was 6-2 and West Conference champions. But somehow, some way, the Red Devils beat the Rams 23-21 to advance to their first championship game in 32 years. Although Hulett lost the title game to Burlington the next week, the win helped set the stage for most of Hulett’s success throughout the mid-1990s.
Heartbreaker: The Red Devils of 1959 were coming off a playoff appearance and were just about hitting their prime. But Moorcroft rudely interrupted Hulett’s plans for sustained success — twice. Moorcroft beat Hulett 18-7 in the first game between the two teams that season; Hulett later avenged the defeat 13-0 in the second game of the round-robin conference schedule. The split regular season led to a playoff game for the championship, as was the style at the time; Moorcroft won that game 6-0 in Sundance. Moorcroft advanced to the championship game, losing to Big Piney 15-12, while Hulett had to wait a year before reaching its first state championship game.
School: Lingle
Nickname: Doggers
Colors: red and blue
Stadium: Kirk Field
State championship: 1990
Times worth remembering: From 1954-59, the Doggers never had more than one loss in a season (according to my current research). In that span, the Doggers went a combined 32-4-2, with a 4-0 season in 1954 and a 6-0 season in 1956.
Times worth forgetting: The relief of 9-man football must have felt amazing in 1990 to the Doggers, who suffered through a tough stretch of seasons in the late 1980s. From 1985-89, the Doggers were 6-34, including winless seasons in 1985 and 1988 (both 0-8). Then, in the first year of 9-man in 1990, the Doggers went 10-0 and won a state title.
Best team: The Lingle team of 1969 went 9-0-1 and had perhaps the school’s best defensive team. The Doggers only gave up 43 points that season and only 13 in their final seven games. The lone smudge was a 6-6 tie with Glenrock, which went 7-1-1 in 1969. The Doggers finished second in the Class B-C UPI voting at the end of the season, just seven points behind 8-0 Cokeville for the mythical state championship.
Biggest win: It’s hard to pick against the school’s only state championship game victory, 1990’s 35-20 win over Dubois in the 9-man championship. The Doggers polished off an impressive season by winning both playoff games, a 14-8 thriller on the road against Meeteetse and the title game win in front of the home fans to cap thee undefeated season. Not bad for a team that was 1-7 the previous year.
Heartbreaker: In 1981, the Doggers put one of their most talented teams on the field. That season, Lingle went 7-1, outscoring its foes 295-58. But that one loss, a grueling 14-6 loss to Lusk at midseason, kept the Doggers from making the playoffs. Lusk went on to win the state championship. On the final all-state team, the Doggers’ four first-team choices were eclipsed only by Lusk’s five.
School: Green River
Nickname: Wolves
Colors: green and black
Stadium: Wolves Stadium
State championships: 1976 and 2004
Times worth remembering: Green River was consistently at its best in the 1950s, when, from 1952-59, the Wolves did not have a losing season. Although the Wolves made the playoffs only twice in that span — and never won a playoff game — they were the perennial team to beat in the Southwest region.
Times worth forgetting: Green River has had its ups and downs, but honestly, the downs were never really all that bad. Green River has never had a winless season, and if a bad streak has to be highlighted, it’s the one from 1997-2001, when the Wolves went 2-6, 1-7, 4-4, 1-7 and 2-8.
Best team: Of the Wolves’ two undefeated teams, it’s the 2004 team that truly stands out. Green River was a juggernaut in 5A play, winning all but one game by at least 20 points. The Wolves, led by 11 first-team all-staters, were rarely challenged and had their way with Natrona — in Casper — in a 20-0 championship-game victory.
Biggest win: The 2004 championship game was Green River’s crowning moment. The Wolves, who had won just one playoff game in the previous nine years, completed an undefeated season — the school’s first since 1963 — and won a state championship for the first time since 1976. Laden with talented, experienced players, the Wolves made every single big play, including an 89-yard TD run by Casey Cutler right before halftime, and avenged a semifinal loss to Natrona one year earlier.
Heartbreaker: It’s hard to argue against the 2008 championship game, which Green River lost 23-21 to Gillette. The two teams had staged a classic regular-season game earlier in the season in Gillette, a game the Camels won 14-13 on a blocked extra point. The title game again came down to a kick, and again the Wolves ended up on the wrong side of it, as Colter Rood’s 40-yard field goal attempt in the final seconds sailed just wide — a kick set up by a botched punt by Gillette in the final minute. Not only that, Green River led 14-0 early, but its usually dependable defense couldn’t hold the lead.
School: Big Horn
Nickname: Rams
Colors: maroon and yellow
Stadium: Dow Memorial Field
State championships: 1985, 2003 and 2004
Times worth remembering: Under Bobby St. John, the Rams of 2002-04 went to three consecutive state championship games. They won two, but more than that, they set a standard of excellence that the 21st-century teams have aspired to reach. Since ’04, the Rams have made it back to the title game two more times and have been perennial contenders in Class 2A.
Times worth forgetting: The Rams went five years without a win from 1959-63, going 0-26-2. The streak eventually reached 31 games — fourth-longest in state history — before Big Horn beat Ten Sleep 19-7 on Sept. 25, 1964. After that, the Rams promptly went 0-12-1 in their next 13 games.
Best team: What set the 1985 state championship team apart was its defense. That year, the Rams shut out their first five opponents and only gave up 35 points the entire season. Big Horn rode that defense to the Class 1A championship, winning three tight, critical games in a row (a 14-12 win over Midwest in the final week to make the playoffs, followed by a 21-3 win over Cokeville and a 7-6 victory over Wright in the postseason) to cap a 10-0 season and the school’s first championship.
Biggest win: Beating Lusk in the 2003 Class 2A title game officially completed Big Horn’s resurrection. Only a year before, the Tigers had thumped Big Horn 31-0 in the title game, but with a core of seniors surrounding some talented juniors, the Rams blew through the regular season with only one close game and rampaged the 2A playoff field, culminating with the win over the Tigers, the long-awaited championship and something else that came much later, but was certainly aided by that championship: the title of perennial contender.
Heartbreaker: St. John’s last game as coach of the Rams is one they’re still talking about in Wyoming’s football circles. The 2007 2A title game came down to the final moments, and Riverside snuck out a 21-20 victory after driving 99 yards on a late fourth-quarter drive, then cashing in a two-point conversion on a run by Chanse Darling.