Category Archives: Decade Teams

As I’ve been hyping for several months now, the Wyoming high school football all-decade teams — followed by the all-decade tournament — is coming up quickly.

Teams will be released every Saturday, Monday and Wednesday on the wyoming-football.com blog, The HQ (where you’re at right now), working forward in time, leading up to the first game. Dates for team releases include:

• 1920s/1930s: Saturday, July 13
• 1940s/1950s: Monday, July 15
• 1960s: Wednesday, July 17
• 1970s: Saturday, July 20
• 1980s: Monday, July 22
• 1990s: Wednesday, July 24
• 2000s: Saturday, July 27
• 2010s: Monday, July 29

Rosters will include information about the players, including their high school team, the position they will play in the simulation, their number for both high school (when available) and in the simulation, their height and weight in their senior year (when available, or in a year or two before or after their senior year), and a short biography.

Unfortunately, your favorite player may have been left off the team. That said, I looked up, down, left and right for information on everyone who I thought deserved a look. I fell down so many rabbit holes while I weighed your suggestions, which I asked for several times on my Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as on this site. Although I made the final decisions on all roster choices, I also sought the expertise of several former and current coaches, media and others whose opinions I value to help provide their insight and expertise. And I know, for sure, that I couldn’t catch everything or everyone. Regardless, there were some difficult choices, and I feel like even rosters of 100 players for every decade couldn’t cover the depth and breadth of talent in Wyoming in each 10-year span. Putting these teams together is one of the toughest things I’ve ever done for this site, knowing all the while that exclusions of qualified players was going to happen.

As for positions? Well, I had to use a mix of a player’s high school and college/pro experience. Some players who were running backs in high school were defensive linemen in college, or a defensive back in high school was a linebacker in college, or a quarterback in high school was a tight end in college. I tried to use high school positions, but I also wanted to put the best football players into the simulation; consequently, while most players’ high school positions are used, some college and pro positions are also used in several instances for where players will play in the all-decade tournament.

I also tried to use players’ high school numbers when I could find them for their in-game uniform numbers. If two players had the same number, I tried to use a player’s college number or, sometimes, a similar number — for example, if two players were No. 11, one might keep 11 and the other one could become 1, 17, 41… something like that. When I couldn’t find a player’s number for either high school or college, which was especially common in the early days before numbers were worn, I picked one randomly.

As for the All-Decade Tournament itself: Games will be simulated using customized rosters on EA Sports NCAA Football 25 on a PS5. Live streams (with my occasional commentary of the games; I’ll try to be entertaining) will be shown on my YouTube channel, allowing for both live watching and rewatching. Games will be streamed on the following schedule, with all games scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. Mountain:

• Game 1: 2010s vs. 1970s, Wednesday, July 31
• Game 2: 1990s vs. 1950s/1940s, Thursday, Aug. 1
• Game 3: 2000s vs. 1960s, Friday, Aug. 2
• Game 4: 1980s vs. 1930s/1920s, Saturday, Aug. 3
• Game 5: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, Sunday, Aug. 4
• Game 6: Game 3 loser vs. Game 4 loser, Monday, Aug. 5
• Game 7: Semifinal, Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, Tuesday, Aug. 6
• Game 8: Semifinal, Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 winner, Wednesday, Aug. 7
• Game 9: Seventh place, Game 5 loser vs. Game 6 loser, Thursday, Aug. 8
• Game 10: Fifth place, Game 5 winner vs. Game 6 winner, Friday, Aug. 9
• Game 11: Third place: Game 7 loser vs. Game 8 loser, Saturday, Aug. 10
• Game 12: Championship, Game 7 winner vs. Game 8 winner, Sunday, Aug. 11

Not coincidentally, the first practice of the 2024 season for Class 4A teams is Monday, Aug. 12.

This has been one of my most daunting projects for wyoming-football.com, so I hope you appreciate what comes from it. Thanks again for your support, and hopefully we’ll see you in the chat on the livestreams.

–patrick

How would a team of Wyoming high school football players from the 1970s stack up against a team of players from the 2010s?

We’ll never know for sure.

But we can try, if we get a little creative about it.

Welcome to the Wyoming high school football all-decade tournament — an eight-team, 12-game cornucopia of possibilities to figure out which decade just might have been the state’s best.

The three-round bracket will include teams from each of the six most recent decades — the 2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s and 1960s. Players from the 1950s and 1940s will be combined into one team, as will players from the 1930s and before.

Games will be simulated using customized rosters on EA Sports NCAA Football 25 on a PS5. Live streams and commentary of the games will be show on my YouTube channel. Dates and times are to be announced, but be on the lookout for an early August start.

Teams and rosters will be introduced on this site in the coming days. Each team will have rosters of 53 players with the following breakdowns:

• Offense: Two quarterbacks, five running backs, five wide receivers, three tight ends, nine offensive linemen.
• Defense: Seven defensive linemen, seven linebackers, eight defensive backs, two rovers.
• Special teams: One kicker, one punter, one return specialist.
• Wild cards: Two “athletes” who could show up anywhere on the field.

With 53 players over eight teams, that’s 424 players in total.

Yeah, it’s an undertaking. But it’s been fun to go down the rabbit holes. I’ve already dug into the histories of probably close to 800 players to try to find the right mix of 424. Rosters are being chosen using a mix of both a player’s performance in high school as well as their performance afterward. For example, how can the team of the 1990s not include Cheyenne East’s Troy Dumas, who starred at Nebraska before playing in the NFL but was never actually an all-state selection? Or how can the team of the 1980s not include Pinedale’s John Burrough, who was a star at Wyoming and played several seasons (and in a Super Bowl) in the NFL but, again, was never an all-state pick? I am trying to find the right balance between high school success and collegiate/pro success, and often I will use the post-high-school success to help make decisions. That said, not every member of every roster has to have played collegiately.

I’m also trying to get a good mix of big-school, medium-school and small-school athletes, as well as a good mix of players from all parts of the state. That said, I am still in the process of finalizing the selections. If you have some players that you think are worth consideration for the team, please leave me a comment below, or tag wyoming-football.com on the Facebook page or on Twitter.

All that said, I hope you enjoy the selections and enjoy the tournament. I can’t wait to share it with you!

–patrick