The home/road record setters, part 1 of 4: Success at home

Long before Under Armour made it trendy, Wyoming high school football teams understood the importance of winning at home.

Putting together a long winning streak is tough enough, given the short seasons and high turnover of high school football teams.

Putting together a long winning streak of only home games is tougher than that; such a streak relies on consistency of play not only from game to game, but also from year to year and sometimes from coach to coach, too.

In Wyoming, two schools have put together long home winning streaks that no other schools can claim to match.

Byron’s 30-game home winning streak from 1953-61 stands alone. The Eagles’ streak started at the end of a lackluster 1953 season in which Byron went 2-3.

Then the Eagles started to win. A lot.

Undefeated seasons followed in 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958 and 1960. In between the 1953 and 1961 seasons, the Eagles won 30 consecutive games at home. (And maybe more — three games Byron won in which the location of the game could not be determined are not included in the tallies of this streak.)

Byron’s home streak ended with the opening game of the 1962 season, a 26-0 loss to Shoshoni.

Oddly enough, Byron had at least three different coaches in the nine seasons from 1953-61.

However, those 30 games do not represent the longest streak any one Wyoming team has put together in which there hasn’t been a loss at home. Instead, that streak belongs to Natrona.

For 40 consecutive games from 1934 to 1940, the Mustangs didn’t lose a single game at home, going 37-0-3 in Casper during that stretch. Oddly enough, NC never had an undefeated team in that span; however, all the losses came on the road.

The Mustangs’ streak came to a close in the final game of the 1940 season, in which Natrona lost 13-0 to Rock Springs; after that loss, NC went 14-0-1 in its next 15 games at home. In that 1940 season, NC beat teams from four different states — Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming — at home.

Natrona, like Byron, went through three different coaches during its nine-year run at home.

However, both the Byron streak and the Natrona streak might be in danger.

Douglas has won 24 consecutive home games since 2008. If the Bearcats can sweep their home games this year and win at least one home playoff game, they will tie Byron’s all-time state record winning streak.

Here is a short rundown of the state’s best all-time and current home winning streaks:

Longest home winning streaks
All-time
Byron, 30 games, 1953-61 (three victories of unknown location are not counted)
Natrona, 28 games, 1936-40
Cokeville, 27 games, 1993-97
Sheridan, 25 games, 1920-24
Shoshoni, 25 games, 1976-81
Current
Douglas, 24 games, since 2008
Southeast, 14 games, since 2009
Longest home non-losing streaks (includes ties)
All-time
Natrona, 37-0-3 (40 games), 1934-40
Cody, 25-0-2 (27 games), 1929-35

Coming tomorrow: The state’s longest home losing streaks.

–patrick