The scoring records page, where the top season totals for both offense and defense are listed, shows the top defensive performances over one season are mostly populated by team efforts from before World War II. In fact, of the 10 seasons where a team gave up one point per game or less, seven came prior to World War II — and the other three are clustered in the early 1970s. Those eras are historically low points for scoring statewide.
Many teams gave up only a handful of points in the game’s early days, where scoreless ties were common and 6-0 finals the standard. Since World War II, scoring has gone up considerably, thereby making a dominating season-long defensive effort pretty rare.
I went back and found all the defensive efforts since 1946 in which a team allowed 4 points per game or fewer.
The top two defensive outputs in the past 70 years both came in the same season: 1974. Torrington gave up just six points in nine games, while Saratoga gave up six points in eight games. In all, six teams from the 1974 season gave up fewer than 4 ppg — in addition to Torrington’s 0.67 and Saratoga’s 0.75 ppg, Worland gave up 2.63 ppg, Tongue River 3.33 ppg, Kemmerer 3.89 and Rawlins 4.0 ppg that season. But the 4 ppg threshold was only reached six other times in the 1970s, making 1974 the true anomaly of defensive performances in Wyoming high school football. (I still don’t know why. Any theories?)
More recently, seven squads from this millennium have given up 4 ppg or fewer. The most recent is Lyman in 2012, which gave up 3.17 points per game. The others are Lusk in 2000 (1.3 points allowed per game), Wright in 2004 (2.6), Gillette in 2000 (3), Cokeville in 2008 (3.5), Lusk in 2002 (3.5) and Cokeville in 2011 (3.9).
Meanwhile, only two teams from the 1990s — Lusk in 1992 and Mountain View 1997 — gave up fewer than 4 ppg over their season, while seven teams were under the 4 points per game allowed threshold in the 1980s: Lusk 1986, Big Horn 1985, Kelly Walsh 1981, Cokeville 1988, Cokeville 1984, Sundance 1981, Greybull 1986.
Fifteen teams from the 1960s gave up 4 ppg or fewer; however, only four from the 1950s met that threshold. And the four teams that accomplished this defensive feat from the second half of the 1940s all did so in the 1947 season.
For perspective, the top scoring defense in the 2016 season was Tongue River, which gave up exactly 10 points per game.
Here’s the list of all teams since 1946 who gave up 4 ppg or less during a season, in order of average points allowed:
Torrington 1974: 9-0, 6 points allowed, 0.67 average points allowed
Saratoga 1974: 8-0, 6 pa, 0.75 apa
Upton 1971: 7-0-1, 8 pa, 1 apa
Lusk 2000: 10-0, 13 pa, 1.3 apa
Byron 1960: 10-0, 13 pa, 1.3 apa
Glenrock 1972: 9-0, 12 pa, 1.33 apa
Sheridan 1953: 9-0, 14 pa, 1.56 apa
Worland 1956: 10-0-1, 18 pa, 1.64 apa
Mountain View 1962: 6-0, 12 pa, 2 apa
Green River 1963: 10-0, 21 pa, 2.1 apa
Evanston 1964: 9-0, 20 pa, 2.22 apa
Pinedale 1975: 10-0, 24 pa, 2.4 apa
Shoshoni 1953: 4-1, 12 pa, 2.4 apa
Lusk 1992: 8-0, 20 pa, 2.5 apa
Wright 2004: 9-1, 26 pa, 2.6 apa
Lusk 1986: 10-0, 26 pa, 2.6 apa
Worland 1974: 7-1, 21 pa, 2.63 apa
St. Stephens 1962: 8-0, 21 pa, 2.63 apa
Glenrock 1969: 7-1-1, 24 pa, 2.67 apa
Mountain View 1997: 10-0, 28 pa, 2.8 apa
Laramie 1960: 9-0, 26 pa, 2.89 apa
Gillette 2000: 10-0, 30 pa, 3 apa
Glenrock 1967: 9-0, 27 pa, 3 apa
Lusk 1963: 8-0-1, 27 pa, 3 apa
Midwest 1947: 7-0-1, 25 pa, 3.13 apa
Lyman 2012: 12-0, 38 pa, 3.17 apa
Byron 1963: 8-0, 26 pa, 3.25 apa
Kemmerer 1947: 6-1-1, 26 pa, 3.25 apa
Big Horn 1985: 10-0, 33 pa, 3.3 apa
Rawlins 1947: 8-0-2, 33 pa, 3.3 apa
Tongue River 1974: 9-0, 30 pa, 3.33 apa
Kelly Walsh 1981: 10-0, 34 pa, 3.4 apa
Laramie 1962: 9-0, 31 pa, 3.44 apa
Cokeville 2008: 8-2, 35 pa, 3.5 apa
Lusk 2002: 10-0, 35 pa, 3.5 apa
Pinedale 1973: 8-2, 35 pa, 3.5 apa
Shoshoni 1947: 4-0, 14 pa, 3.5 apa
Cokeville 1988: 10-0, 36 pa, 3.6 apa
Cokeville 1984: 9-1, 36 pa, 3.6 apa
Tongue River 1972: 8-1, 33 pa, 3.67 apa
Laramie 1964: 9-0, 33 pa, 3.67 apa
Sundance 1981: 7-1, 30 pa, 3.75 apa
Pine Bluffs 1950: 7-0, 27 pa, 3.86 apa
Byron 1966: 7-1, 31 pa, 3.88 apa
Kemmerer 1974: 9-0, 35 pa, 3.89 apa
Star Valley 1962: 9-0, 35 pa, 3.89 apa
Cokeville 2011: 11-0, 39 pa, 3.9 apa
Greybull 1986: 7-1, 32 pa, 4 apa
Rawlins 1974: 9-1, 40 pa, 4 apa
Lingle 1970: 6-2, 32 pa, 4 apa
Greybull 1962: 8-0, 32 pa, 4 apa
Which one of these seasons do you think is the most impressive defensive effort? Leave a comment below and let’s chat about the best work you’ve seen in stopping other teams from scoring.
–patrick