Sometimes, it’s only in retrospect that we can fully grasp the significance of a particular football game.
Take Week 1 of last season, when Cokeville beat Mountain View. While we knew both the Panthers and the Buffalos would be pretty good in 2014, we had no way of knowing that both teams on the field that day would eventually win state championships. Yet just 10 weeks later, both teams did just that in Laramie, with Cokeville beating Lusk for the 1A 11-man championship and Mountain View topping Big Horn for the 2A title.
*The Cokeville-Mountain View game from 2014 was one of 16 times in state history in which two eventual state champions played each other during the regular season.
*Of those 16 games, 14 have come since 1984 and 10 have come since 1998.
And two happened on Sept. 5, 2008. That day, eventual 3A champ Glenrock beat eventual 4A champ Douglas, while eventual 2A champ Burns beat eventual 1A champ Southeast.
Cokeville has been involved in five such contests — and the Panthers have won all five. Three times, Cokeville and Big Piney played each other in the regular season when both schools won state titles, and three times Cokeville won by one point (14-13 in 2001, 7-6 in 1998 and 8-7 in 1988).
Southeast and Lusk both won back-to-back titles in 1999 and 2000, and they played each other both years. Lusk came out on top both times. Southeast got its revenge in 2001, when the Cyclones beat Lusk in the state title game after moving into the Tigers’ classification.
The first meetings of eventual state champions came in 1952 and 1953, when eventual Class AA champion Sheridan and eventual Class A winner Worland played each other to open the season. Both times, Sheridan got the better of Worland.
Twice, eventual state champs have met four seasons in a row: from 1998-2001 and from 2005-08.
*Class 3A champion Kemmerer played two state champions in 2007, beating 2A champ Riverside but losing to 4A champ Jackson.
No games will be added to this list in 2015; none of the teams in the championship games played any of the other title-game participants from other classifications during the regular season.
*Here are the results of the 16 eventual state champ vs. eventual state champ matchups:
2014: Cokeville 30, at Mountain View 12 (Sept. 6)
2008: at Glenrock 27, Douglas 14 (Sept. 5)
2008: Burns 27, at Southeast 18 (Sept. 5)
2007: at Kemmerer 21, Riverside 0 (Sept. 29)
2007: at Jackson 24 Kemmerer 12 (Oct. 12)
2006: at Southeast 32, Guernsey-Sunrise 0 (Sept. 15)
2005: at Sundance 26, Upton 19 (Sept. 16)
2001: Cokeville 14, at Big Piney 13 (Sept. 7)
2000: Lusk 40, at Southeast 0 (Sept. 8)
1999: at Lusk 43, Southeast 14 (Sept. 10)
1998: at Cokeville 7, Big Piney 6 (Sept. 18)
1991: at Sheridan 34, Cody 14 (Sept. 13)
1988: Cokeville 8, at Big Piney 7 (Oct. 13)
1984: at Cokeville 44, Mountain View 13 (Sept. 7)
1953: Sheridan 18, at Worland 0 (Sept. 4)
1952: at Sheridan 43, Worland 14 (Sept. 5)
This list does not count times when co-champions of a class played each other during the regular season.
–patrick
Post updated 1:27 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11, to add the 2007 game between Kemmerer and Riverside, which was omitted from the original list. * indicates paragraphs with updated information from original post.
10 years later, Upton-Sundance are playing for the Championship, just combined. Amazing what happens in a short amount of time and how once rivals can come together and bring so much compassion and joy to communities that had it not happened, may not be the case today. I think its an incredible story of perseverance and how these two towns didn’t let football die. Instead they came together and put together a quality product after a long stretch of defeat.
Truly, as you stated, “Sometimes, it’s only in retrospect that we can fully grasp the significance of a particular football game.”
Forgot one. 2007 Kemmerer beat Riverside that year and played Jackson.
Ack! Ted is right. Good catch. I will update this post to reflect that.
–patrick