School: Midwest
Nickname: Oilers
Colors: maroon and silver
Stadium: Oiler Field
State championships: 1979 and 1991
Times worth remembering: The Oilers’ best teams came in 1979-80, when Midwest won 17 consecutive games, a pair of Powder River Conference championships and a Class B state title. In that two-year span, the Oilers outscored their opponents by an average of 31-9. The 1979 title, won by defeating Big Piney 33-8, was the first state title for the Oilers.
Times worth forgetting: It’s hard to overlook the struggles of the 21st-century Oilers, who have had their most successful seasons playing sub-varsity schedules. The period from 2003-07 was especially tough, as Midwest went 5-32, posting three of those five wins in that time over Wyoming Indian. In those 37 games, Midwest broke into double digits only six times. The 2003 Oilers scored only 14 points all season; in 2007, the Oilers only scored six points.
Best team: No one can claim they didn’t see the 1947 Oilers coming. After finishing 8-1 in 1946, with the only loss 27-26 to Douglas, Midwest reloaded in 1947 and proved to be one of the best teams in the state regardless of classification, finishing 7-0-1. The strength of the 1947 team was its defense – the Oilers gave up just 25 points all season and won five games by shutout. However, at the end of the season, coach John Bays made it public his team was not interested in playing in the postseason and dismissed an idea to play Natrona in the postseason “Turkey Bowl.”
Biggest win: The game the locals still recall best is the 1991 9-man championship, and not just for the football. By 1991, the oil boom had gone bust, and Midwest was a town trying to capture the few stray remnants of pride it had remaining. The 1991 Oilers gave the town its pride back. And winning the way they did — in a 6-0 defensive struggle against Big Horn, the team that had busted the Oilers’ hopes so many times back in the 1980s — the town once again had that glimmer of hope that had all but faded. It was the Oilers’ last hurrah — the team missed the playoffs for the next 17 years — but it also gave the town one last thing on which to hang its hard hat before the extraction industry bottomed out soon afterward.
Heartbreaker: The Oilers of 1985 and 1986 were as good as any team in Midwest’s history. But neither one made the playoffs. In 1985, Midwest went 6-2, beating every team in the 2A Powder River Conference, but losing to the two 1A schools in their own conference — including a 14-12 gut-wrenching loss to Big Horn in the season finale — kept them out of the playoffs. In 1986, the Oilers were even better, posting a 7-0 record before again facing Big Horn in the regular-season finale. Again, it was the Rams that won — this time 21-14, in overtime — and because of how 1A playoff qualifying worked at the time, with the No. 4 seed rotating between three conferences, the 7-1 Oilers stayed home for the playoffs.