The Wyoming High School Activities Association on Wednesday approved new conference alignments for the 2011 and 2012 football seasons. All of the changes were motivated by teams switching classifications, which forced some reorganization. The new conferences are:
Class 4A
Cheyenne Central
Cheyenne East
Cheyenne South
Evanston
Gillette
Kelly Walsh
Laramie
Natrona County
Rock Springs
Sheridan
(Cheyenne South in, Green River out. Pretty simple changes for the round-robin 4A.)
Class 3A
East Conference
Buffalo
Douglas
Lander
Rawlins
Riverton
Torrington
West Conference
Cody
Green River
Jackson
Powell
Star Valley
Worland
(Green River moves into the West from 4A, which forces Lander to the East. Wheatland drops to 2A.)
Class 2A
East Conference
Big Horn
Burns
Glenrock
Moorcroft
Newcastle
Tongue River
Wheatland
Wright
West Conference
Big Piney
Greybull
Kemmerer
Lovell
Lyman
Mountain View
Pinedale
Thermopolis
(Wheatland comes into the East from 3A, which bumps Thermopolis over to the West. Wyoming Indian drops to 1A.)
Class 1A 11-man
East Conference
Lingle
Lusk
Normative Services
Pine Bluffs
Southeast
Sundance
Upton
West Conference
Burlington
Cokeville
Riverside
Rocky Mountain
Saratoga
Shoshoni
Wind River
Wyoming Indian
(Hulett and Dubois both drop into 1A six-man. Wyoming Indian comes into the West from 2A.)
Class 1A six-man
North Conference
Dubois
Hulett
Kaycee
Meeteetse
Ten Sleep
South Conference
Farson
Guernsey
Hanna
Midwest
Snake River
(Hulett and Dubois come in and the classification splits into two conferences.)
Most of these moves make sense to me. The 3A East-West is a tough split, but Lander joins Riverton in the East for a logical pairing. The 2A division, with Thermopolis in the West, makes more geographic sense. The 1A 11-man splits work, too, although, there will probably be some out-of-state pairings that come out of the seven-team East Conference. The 1A six-man split is a bit of a surprise to me (I would have anticipated an East-West split), but no matter the split, teams are going to have to do a fair amount of traveling.
What do you think? Post your thoughts below.
–patrick
I never could figure why we would pass through Thermopolis to play Greybull and Lovell and yet not play them…I like it
Why did Worland move to the east in everything but football? This makes little sense to me. They should be east in everything or west in everything including football. And vice-versa with Lander…anyone understand the logic on this one?
3ARocks, that’s a good question. At a glance, it would make more sense to move either one or the other for both. The only justification I can see is that with Riverton already in the East for football (but not for all the other 3A sports), Lander was a better pair for football specifically. Also, Lander-Jackson makes a better travel pair for basketball than Worland-Jackson does. When you look at it sport-by-sport, this way might actually be a little bit better mileage-wise… although confusing when you look at it from a distance.
–patrick
I have to think that Green River will dominate 3A if they keep up playing like they have the last couple years. I know that the 08 and maybe 09 teams would have if they were down
I still think that too much emphasis is placed on designing a structure that works for regional and state playoff brackets and the expense of designing a system that keeps travel reasonable during the regular season. At least Burns now has one game (Wheatland) that is against a team that is in the southeastern 1/4 of the state and that is “only” a little more 100 miles away.
The WHSAA needs to accept unbalanced regions, to look seriously at geographical quadrants, and really move toward setting up classifications and regions that focus on making the regular season work well, even if the state bracket is imperfectly seeded. In the end, the champion has to win every time anyway.
Agreed, Boyd. Two years ago when the WHSAA proposed the 16-team 2A and 1A I really thought they should have gone to four four-team divisions to make the nonconference (and conference) travel a bit more reasonable. That way you can preserve some of these nearby, longstanding geographic rivalries (Riverside-Greybull, Burns-Pine Bluffs, Glenrock-Douglas, etc.). Then, the top two from each conference move on. I like that better than these unwieldy eight-team conferences. What the WHSAA is using now might make scheduling easier, but it makes travel a ton harder. Blech. I’ll take smaller conferences any day.
–patrick
Levi..no disrespect to GR, coach Howard is a friend but there are some very good teams and coaches at the 3A level…I would put up Douglas, Cody, Buffalo against any of the 4A teams and they would hold their own….