Week 2 Humble Pie: A wide gap, spontaneous shouts and play the blowouts off, Keyboard Cat

Who is this Sheridan team — and what the heck happened up there in the past two weeks?

The Broncs proved something on Friday with a 34-21 victory over top-ranked Green River, a game that wasn’t as close as the final score indicates.

So this is what we know in Class 4A: Kelly Walsh throttled Sheridan two weeks ago, Green River barely beat Kelly Walsh last week, and then Sheridan throttled Green River last night.

Which one was the aberration?

That, only time will tell. But, as of about 10 p.m. Friday night, the Broncs look like the best team in the state. They led 27-0 at halftime and shut down everything the Wolves wanted to do on both sides of the ball.

After three weeks, only Cheyenne Central and Gillette remain undefeated in Wyoming’s 4A ranks. And it looks like any of about six or seven 4A schools could win it all in mid-November in Laramie.

As of Week 2, it looks like Sheridan is — all of a sudden — the team to beat.

Second mad props to Big Horn, which used opportunistic offense and a key turnover in the fourth quarter to top Burns — in Burns — in a rematch of last year’s 2A championship game. The Rams got a little bit of revenge for the Broncs’ win last November and sent the Broncs to an 0-2 start, something few people saw coming.

Third mad props to Star Valley, which eked out a 14-13 win over Riverton. Don’t know much about how this game broke down — comment below if you do, I’d love to hear how it went. Either way, a big win for the Braves, who finally saw some glimpses of offense in a game that could put them right back into contention.

And that’s all of this week’s Humble Pie (for now). Ditching humble for a minute, I was freaking awesome making my picks this week!!!!!!!!!1111

Once again, the theme of the week was big points and blowouts. Kemmerer 54-0 over Lyman, Douglas 65-0 over Jackson, Big Piney 54-6 over Wyoming Indian, Lingle 62-7 over Upton, Wind River 55-0 over Shoshoni (in which Shoshoni finished with 10 players on the field), Cokeville 49-6 over Riverside, Midwest 80-24 over Meeteetse in six-man and — ouch — Cody 72-8 over Rawlins. Put simply, it was an ugly week.

In part, that’s what made it so predictable. Especially in 3A and 2A, the top teams have already asserted themselves — and so have the bottom teams. Obviously, anything can happen on any given Friday, but that doesn’t mean it will.

That said, there were still some good, close, exciting games that helped settle some of the questions atop the divisions. Buffalo and Lander, as expected, staged a great, close, tight, defense-first game, with the Bison pulling off a 10-3 victory. I still think the Bison and the Tigers are among 3A’s best — Douglas has seized the rights to the top spot — and both teams proved last night they have what it takes to make a deep playoff run.

Thermopolis needed a comeback, scoring 15 late points, to beat Wright 22-19 on the road. The Bobcats’ big win last week over Lyman was expected; beating Wright on the road was a toss-up. The Bobcats proved they could pull out those close ones on Friday, no matter the location — something that will bode well for the rest of the season.

Also right up there is the Hulett-Lusk showdown, won by Lusk 24-10. Both the Tigers and the Red Devils are talented — talented enough to go deep into November. But the 1A East hierarchy is settling out right now, and the big Lusk-Southeast showdown looms next week in Yoder.

The Big Horn-Burns game and the Star Valley-Riverton games fall into this category, too.

Overall, the 2009 season is shaping up kind of odd. There have been too many blowouts, especially in the first week of conference play, and not enough defense in basically every single classification.

Doesn’t mean it’s not exciting, though — and I’m still having fun. How about you?

This week: 28-3 (90 percent). This season: 63-14 (82 percent).

–patrick