Found some more all-state teams. I’ve added the Class 1A-Division I and filled in the rest of the Class 4A team for 1997 and also added the Class 1A-Division I and Class 1A-Division II all-state teams and filled in the rest of the Class 3A team for 1998.

Now, I’m only missing the following teams for all-state from 1991 to the present:

1997: Class 2A
1995: Class 1A-Division II
1994: Class 1A-9 man

Once again, if you have those, let me know.

–patrick

I updated two missing games last night. One was adding a game to Southeast’s 1983 season, a 36-8 road victory over Crawford, Neb., on Oct. 7. The other was filling in a missing score from the 1967 season, Goshen Hole’s 21-6 road victory over Huntley on Oct. 13.

Team and year pages, as well as the standings pages, have been updated to reflect the changes. Thanks to Todd Miller for helping me fill in these gaps!

I also received a scan of the 1967-68 Goshen Hole High School yearbook from Mr. Miller that had some cool info on the origin of the field at the high school. Check out the pdf by clicking here if you’re interested.

–patrick

The recent WHSAA football reclassification proposal — the one with the addition of six-man tied into several changes to the number of schools in each classification — has me thinking about how the conferences would be aligned in those new leagues.Of course, power ratings will not be used to determine playoff seeding after this season, so conference alignment will a little bit more important for football teams this time around than it was two years ago.

For more about the proposal, click here. It’s the second half of the story.

Of course, these are nothing but the musings of one man. And it’s no guarantee that this proposal will even pass (despite the fact that it probably will).

Class 4A: 10 teams

Class 4A will have to find a new split somehow. Right now, with 11 teams, the split is five in the North and six in the South. The team dropping down would most likely be Riverton, which leaves a 6-4 split. That means one of the South teams will have to go to the North.

My first guess is that the Cheyenne schools will be split, with one of the Cheyenne schools playing in the North and one in the South. This wouldn’t be unprecedented — I think a similar split existed in the early-to-mid 1990s. Barring that, Laramie could go North, but I think it’s more likely that one of the Cheyenne schools will go. I’ll say Central. I don’t know why.
My projected 4A North
: Gillette, Sheridan, Kelly Walsh, Natrona County, Cheyenne Central.
My projected 4A South: Cheyenne East, Laramie, Rock Springs, Green River, Evanston.

Class 3A: 12 teams

Decades of tradition dictate that 3A will be split East-West. But right now, that means a 5-7 split, with five in the East and seven in the West. That means one of the West teams will have to go East. The most obvious candidates are Riverton and Lander — and as weird as it seems to split up two schools that are less than a half-hour apart, that’s the most likely solution. Based on current alignments, I’d say Lander might be the first choice, but don’t be so sure. Lander has fought moving to the East, and with Riverton dropping down, they might more easily assimilate into the East anyway. It would also help create some more balance — most of the bigger 3A schools are in the West, and if the biggest went East, that might help.
My projected 3A East
: Douglas, Rawlins, Wheatland, Torrington, Buffalo, Riverton.
My projected 3A West: Jackson, Worland, Star Valley, Powell, Lander, Cody.

Class 2A: 16 teams

Class 2A won’t have enough teams to go to four divisions, and three divisions makes no sense logistically for deciding playoff qualifiers — especially without power ratings. So East-West it is, even if it’s really ugly, and even if the conference schedule will take up about every week of the season. (Note — 2A would actually be 15 teams, as Wyoming Indian will likely opt down).
My projected 2A East
: Newcastle, Moorcroft, Big Horn, Tongue River, Glenrock, Burns, Wright.
My projected 2A West: Thermopolis, Lovell, Greybull, Big Piney, Kemmerer, Lyman, Pinedale, Mountain View.
(By the way, three divisions of five teams apiece could make a lot of sense…. and the only thing I think hanging it up is playoff logistics. How about this: Big Piney, Kemmerer, Lyman, Pinedale and Mountain View in the “West”, Thermopolis, Lovell, Greybull, Big Horn and Tongue River in the “North” and Newcastle, Moorcroft, Glenrock, Burns and Wright in the “East”? I think it works, but trying to get eight teams from three conferences is a pain in the butt without power ratings).

Class 1A, in two divisions: Everyone else

Class 1A-11 man figures to have about 17 teams, by my count. That’s enough for four conferences, with the top two from each advancing to the playoffs. Of course, this is ALL guesswork right now. I have no concrete figures on which schools would play 11-man and which would play six-man.
My projected 1A-11 Northeast: Sundance, Normative Services, Upton, Hulett.
My projected 1A-11 Southeast: Pine Bluffs, Lusk, Lingle, Southeast.
My projected 1A-11 Northwest: Rocky Mountain, Riverside, Burlington, Shoshoni.
My projected 1A-11 Southwest: Wind River, Dubois, Saratoga, Cokeville, Wyoming Indian (with WI likely opting down from 2A).

Class 1A-six-man figures to have about seven or eight teams in its first season. My guess is an East-West split.
My projected 1A-6 East: Guernsey, Midwest, Kaycee, Rock River.
My projected 1A-6 West: Fort Washakie, Meeteetse, Ten Sleep, Hanna.
Contingency: If either Snake River or Farson get their ducks in a row in time, either school would go into the West. If they both happen to put teams together in time, they’d both move to the West, and Hanna would likely move to the East so there would be five teams in each division. Of course, a lot of this is still guesswork. There are so many things left to consider — chief among them is whether or not this proposal even passes the WHSAA board of directors.When and if it does, then the next question is where and how the enrollment numbers stack up (I used the most recent ADM numbers to compile these conferences). Green River, Riverton and Star Valley are all very close together…. and that could end up being sticky if the numbers don’t fall exactly as planned with Green River tenth, Riverton 11th and Star Valley 12th. And the entire structure of 1A is extremely dependent on schools with start-up programs, which is always questionable until the first kickoff of the first game.

Then there is the question of the WHSAA board itself. They often see angles the rest of us don’t — often for the better.

But I like to muse on this stuff. So here it is.

–patrick

I’ve been on vacation for the past couple weeks, and I’ve been using some of my free time at the Natrona County Public Library, chipping away at the research for this project.

The further back I go, the tougher it is to find results and schedules in one place. Rudimentary research has been completed for eight seasons now (1943-50) but a significant amount of legwork remains on each of those seasons.

When I first started this project, I was amazed Wyoming did not have a playoff system in place for most of the 1940s. As I have read the day-to-day accounts of life in the 1940s, though, I’m less and less surprised.

Gas and travel rationing severely cut down where teams were able to go and who they played. District play was loosely organized at best, and often incomplete — schools usually did not play all the other schools in their respective districts during the season, which meant qualifying for a playoff was all but impossible. Also, there was no real push to organize state playoffs during World War II, be it by the Wyoming High School Activities Association or by any specific schools, coaches, players, parents or media. Debating a champion, apparently, was much more fun than settling the issue on the field.

The end of each season was littered with postseason challenges, usually issued through the newspapers. In 1947, for example, Northwest district champion Lovell challenged Big Five champ Rawlins to a “state championship game” in Casper. Rawlins declined, so instead, Lovell challenged second-place Big Five team Natrona. NC won that game, but Rawlins maintained its hold on the mythical state championship.

You’ll notice that my state championship team listings do not include the years 1941-47. In part, that’s because there were no state playoffs. However, the period between 1962 and 1974 was also littered with mythical champions. So why do I list the mythical champs between 1962 and 1974 and not the ones between 1941 and 1947?

I don’t know.

I think that might change soon. But the prospect of picking state champions from 60-plus years ago is full of problems.

The first problem is that there was no statewide media or coaches poll back in the 1940s. The statewide AP and UPI polls were used to determine the unofficial champs in the period from 1962-74, but no such mechanism existed in the 1940s. Instead, newspapers declared their own unofficial state champions. From what I’ve seen so far, the papers often came to a consensus, but without knowing which reporters saw which teams, it’s hard to give those selections a lot of credibility.

That said, here are the teams I’d pick as the unofficial state champions of the years I’ve researched:

1947: Rawlins. Big Five champions; refused all postseason game offers.

1946: Sheridan. Big Five champions beat Cody 20-19 in the first “Turkey Bowl,” the unofficial state championship game, played on Thanksgiving day in Casper. By the way, I think it was this particular game that really galvanized the effort for a state championship playoff system in later years….

1945: Cheyenne Central. Went 9-0, with victories over Torrington, Rawlins, Natrona, Laramie and five out-of-state foes.

1944: Cheyenne Central. Went 8-1, with the only loss to Alliance, Neb. Beat in-state foes Rock Springs, Torrington, Natrona, Rawlins and Laramie.

1943: Cheyenne Central. Went 7-0-1 (but may have played one more game). First undefeated season in school history. Topped Rock Springs, Rawlins, Natrona and Laramie in in-state play. (A case could also be made for the team from the Heart Mountain Japanese internment camp, which went undefeated and un-scored upon. However, the Eagles were not allowed to fully participate in district play, and Powell — the team that eventually won the Northwest district — refused to schedule Heart Mountain. Powell beat Worland 19-13 in the district championship game on Thanksgiving.)

The years 1942 and 1941 are still waiting for my eyes.

In part, what drives me to continue this research is to acknowledge the efforts of the boys who played in these six “lost” years, the six years from 1941-47 where no champions are listed. Their efforts have gone unrecognized for too long. Their only misfortune was being born, and conversely playing high school football, at the wrong time in Wyoming’s history. Those players, and those teams, deserve to have their names listed as state champions — even if it’s only unofficially.

–patrick

I added all-state teams for 1995 and 1996 to the all-state page. I’ve also added all-state teams for 1946, 1947 and 1948.

The all-state team compilation is a little side project to the compilation of scores and overall school records. Just like the rest of the site, I hope to complete this research, too, although my main focus for now is going to remain on scores and records, with all-state teams staying as a nice side project in the interim.

I now have darn near every all-state team since 1991. I’m still missing these:

1998: Class 1A-Division I AND Class 1A-Division II. Also, the Class 3A list I have is incomplete.
1997: Class 2A AND Class 1A-Division I . Also, the Class 4A list I have is incomplete.
1995: Class 1A-Division II
1994: Class 1A-9 man

If you have complete lists of these all-state teams, or complete lists of any all-state teams from 1990 or before, please e-mail them to me at pschmiedt@yahoo.com. I’ll post them as quickly as I can and we’ll go from there.

Cool.

–patrick