Five Minute Introduction (times three): North Big Horn, Kaycee, Bow-Basin

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School: North Big Horn
Nickname: Grizzlies
Colors: brown and yellow
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: none
Times worth remembering: A precursor to current-day Rocky Mountain High School, the North Big Horn team was a combination of Cowley and Deaver-Frannie. And the combo took a while to gel; in six years together before Byron joined the fold, the Grizzlies never had a season with fewer than three losses. Even so, the first NBH team in 1977 was probably the best — it posted three shutout victories, including one over future partner Byron 12-0.
Times worth forgetting: The Grizzlies’ toughest season was probably their last, 1982, not because of the number of the losses but because of the nature. The Grizzlies’ offense posted a respectable 20 points per game, but the defense gave up an average of 27 — and, consequently, the Grizzlies lost games by scores like 39-22, 16-12, 38-20, 36-22 and 32-22.

North Big Horn team page.

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School: Kaycee
Nickname: Buckaroos
Colors: blue and red
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: None
Short history: Kaycee’s first season went better than any other debut in recent history. The Buckaroos posted a 4-3 record in the 2009 regular season, but posted a pair of playoff victories on the road to advance to the state title game in its first season. The big loss to Guernsey-Sunrise in the title game, though, did little to diminish Kaycee’s impressive gridiron debut. Kaycee followed that up with a semifinal playoff appearance in 2010.

Kaycee team page.

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School: Bow-Basin
Nickname: Wranglers
Colors: maroon and white
Stadium: Unknown
State championships: None
Times worth remembering: In their nine-year history, the Wranglers had only one winning season, but it sure was memorable. After dropping its first two games, Bow-Basin won six in a row to cap a 6-2 season. Early losses to Lingle and Guernsey were all that kept the team from advancing to the playoffs.
Times worth forgetting: After the 6-2 season in ’78, the Wranglers stumbled toward the end of their program, going 2-6 in 1979, 1-6 in 1980 and 0-8 in the final season, 1981, before the program was dropped.

Bow-Basin team page.

The 100-victory club: Three more for 2011?

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According to the records that I have compiled, there are 21 coaches in state history who have broken the 100-victory barrier. It’s an incredibly exclusive club, one that coaches enter only with excellence and longevity.

Excellence comes with not only having talented teams, but doing something with them — none of the 21 coaches with at least 100 victories have a career record below the .500 mark. Longevity comes with a passion for coaching, a passion for football and a passion for teaching — making it to 100 victories has taken every one of the 21 coaches at least 15 years to accomplish.

That said, only two current coaches have sustained both the excellence and the years to join the club: Cokeville’s Todd Dayton (an all-time state best 253 victories) and Natrona’s Steve Harshman (125 victories, 14th all-time from 1930-2010).

However, this season, as many as three current coaches could join this club, an unprecedented feat that says more about the individuals than about the group.

The three coaches on the cusp of joining the “100 Club” are Southeast’s Mark Bullington (98 career victories), Sheridan’s Don Julian (96) and Buffalo’s Pat Lynch (91).

If championships are the measure of success, then Bullington has to be included in the discussion of the best all-time. With seven state championships in his 12 years with the Cyclones, Bullington has won in bunches. His career record of 98-23 is a testament to that, too. Although Southeast had a consistent program in place when Bullington took over in 1999, he has made the Cyclones more than just consistent; by now, the Cyclones are threats for a state championship in every year, no matter the makeup of the roster.

Julian, meanwhile, is one of the most respected coaches in the state, a reputation earned with four championships in Riverton and another last year in Sheridan. After a short break from the high school game to join the staff at UW, Julian has been restoring the Sheridan program into a consistent state title contender. He is one coach the others don’t want to see on that other sideline. His career record, while coaching against some of the state’s best teams? 96-32.

Lynch has the toughest task of joining the club in 2011, with nine victories standing between him and the honor. But if anyone can overcome the odds, it’s Lynch. Working with one of 3A’s smallest schools, enrollment-wise, Lynch has rolled up a record of 91-37, winning at least seven games every season from 2003 forward. Since taking the reins of the Buffalo program in 1998, he has won a pair of state titles and taken the Bison to the title game four other times.

Obviously, 100 is an arbitrary mark. It doesn’t truly measure the things that make a high school coach great. But earning 100 victories takes those qualities that make coaches not only good coaches, but good men and good mentors for the children they lead.

Here is a quick glance at the club, with totals compiled from 1930 to 2010 to the best of my abilities:

Coach Wins Losses Ties
Dayton, Todd 253 49 0
Deti, John E. 205 94 8
Deti, John R. 188 102 2
Fullmer, Jerry 174 82 0
McDougall, John 156 115 2
Eskelsen, Joel 148 81 0
Hoff, Dallas 144 95 6
Blanchard, Okie 141 48 5
Gray, Walter 140 87 0
Moon, Mike 136 79 1
Scherry, Rick 133 84 1
Hill, Art 132 92 3
Bailey, Harold 128 92 0
Harshman, Steve 125 65 0
Mirich, Carl 124 101 1
Keith, Bruce 117 82 0
Dinnel, Don 113 61 0
Petronovich, Pete 113 102 5
Fackrell, Kay 111 79 0
Bartlett, Doug 102 73 0
Smith, Ben 101 33 0

–patrick

Updates: Hulett, Big Piney, Pinedale, Cowley

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A few updates have found their way to some pages. Or something. Does that make sense? Whatever. You know how I do this by now. Here’s some updates:

Missing games

Found the score for Hulett’s 55-6 victory over Buffalo, S.D., on Sept. 15, 1961

Found the score for Big Piney’s 26-25 victory over the Lyman JV on Nov. 11, 1942

Found the score for Pinedale’s 21-13 loss to the Kemmerer JV on Oct. 2, 1940

Coaches Project: Update for Cowley.

All-state teams: Mad props to Wes Sibert from Mountain View for hooking me up with a complete list for the 1998 Class 2A all-state team. I’ve long suspected this list of being incomplete and this week Wes sent me the complete list. Several players were missing off my old list, including some from Buffalo and Lyman and all the selections from Glenrock and Mountain View. Thanks again, Wes!

All the updates have been made on all the relevant pages.

–patrick

Statistics and home-field advantage….

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For one of my courses at graduate school here at the University of Wyoming, I had to analyze a data set and make some statistical conclusions about it. The point of the paper was to demonstrate competency with the statistical computer programs we have and to execute the correct test given the data… and to demonstrate those ideals, I decided to do some statistical crunching of home-field advantage in Wyoming high school football.

In short, my statistical analyses revealed that home-field advantage exists in Wyoming — and it’s huge in playoff games.

I’m not going to bog you down with the statistical number-crunching that I went through to do this (but if you’re interested, I can share some of my t scores, degrees of freedom, standard deviations, etc.). In a nutshell, here’s some of the fun stuff I discussed in my paper:

Home team record, 1930-2010: 10,965 victories, 8,482 losses, 447 ties, .562 winning percentage
Home team record, regular season, 1930-2010: 10,354-8,243-444, .555 winning percentage
Home team record, playoffs, 1931-2010: 611-239-3, .718 winning percentage (yes, there have been some ties in the playoffs… they were broken in various ways, but the points were not added to the official final score)

So while home teams win about 55 or 56 percent of the time, home teams in the playoffs win almost 72 percent of the time. Makes sense, as the better teams in the regular season get higher seeds and home games in the playoffs. Moving on…

Average score for home teams, all games, 1930-2010: 19.36 points
Average score for road teams, all games, 1930-2010: 16.05 points
Average difference in score between home teams and road teams, all games, 1930-2010: 3.31 points per game
Average difference in score between home teams and road teams, regular-season games, 1930-2010: 2.91 points per game
Average difference in score between home teams and road teams, playoff games, 1931-2010: 12.16 points per game

So there’s about a three-point difference between home teams and road teams for all games (that’s about a three-point bump the home team gets every game, just for playing at home). In the playoffs, that difference is more than 12 points per game. Probably skewed by an inordinate number of first-round playoff blowouts. Still, interesting…

This count doesn’t include games where the final score or location couldn’t be determined. The final total of counted games was little more than 19,000.

My final conclusion was that, without home-field advantage, you would expect the home team to win 50 percent of the time. The odd six percent can be explained in part by the location of the game. This affects about two games a week, or about 18 games a season, meaning that roughly every three years, every school will win at least one game — and lose at least one game — purely because of where the game was played.

This is the stripped-down, simplified version of my analysis. My paper was a lot more nerdy than this. Even so, I think even the casual fan will get a kick out of these numbers. So here they are. 🙂

–patrick

Newsbreak: Kelly Walsh

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Jim Horne steps down as KW coach (Casper Star-Tribune).

It’s this time of year again…. Has anyone else heard of any other coaches in the state stepping down? Let me know; leave a comment here or e-mail me at pschmiedt@yahoo.com. Thanks.

–patrick

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