Everyone, meet Slim MacGuffin.
He might just be the next great piece of Wyoming high school football lore.
Right now, Slim belongs in the trophy case at Sheridan High School.
In addition to winning the Class 4A championship this year, the Sheridan Broncs also held onto an important honor they didn’t even know they were playing for — the Wyoming football MacGuffin.
Some of you may have heard of the MacGuffin, which has built a following on Twitter by tracking college football’s most interesting theoretical traveling trophy.
The concept is simple: All you have to do to get the trophy is beat the team that has it.
In this case, we start with the first Wyoming high school football game ever played, and the winner gets a trophy — Slim, in this case. They get to hold onto that trophy until they lose; the team that beats them gets the trophy. That team then holds onto it until they lose. And so on, and so on, and so on.
In the college ranks, there have been more than 1,500 MacGuffin games; the trophy has traded hands 317 times since the first intercollegiate game in 1869, and 93 teams have had the trophy, including the University of Wyoming for a bit, including the entire 1994 offseason.
If we had a Wyoming high school football MacGuffin, though, Sheridan would be the rightful owners of that trophy, at least for now.
Starting with the first game between two Wyoming high schools in 1908 — played on Nov. 3 of that year between crosstown rivals Laramie and University Prep — there have been 907 Wyoming football MacGuffin games, as of the end of the 2022 season. In all, 24 different teams will have held the trophy, and 38 programs will have played in MacGuffin games.
Since 1908, the trophy would have logged some significant miles in every corner of the state. Every Class 4A team except Cheyenne South would have had it at least once. And, oddly enough, it would have been up for grabs in every 4A/5A championship game since 1987.
Here’s a breakdown of the teams who would have had the trophy in their possession, with tallies of how many times they defended the trophy and how many times they beat teams with the MacGuffin to steal it for themselves:
| School | Games defended | Times won |
| Sheridan | 176 | 28 |
| Natrona | 115 | 29 |
| Laramie | 95 | 20 |
| Cheyenne Central | 80 | 16 |
| Worland | 72 | 4 |
| Campbell County | 50 | 13 |
| Rock Springs | 46 | 9 |
| Cheyenne East | 35 | 15 |
| Kelly Walsh | 19 | 6 |
| Thermopolis | 15 | 4 |
| Lander | 11 | 4 |
| Cody | 10 | 3 |
| Powell | 10 | 1 |
| Lovell | 8 | 3 |
| Thunder Basin | 7 | 2 |
| Douglas | 6 | 1 |
| Evanston | 5 | 3 |
| Cowley | 5 | 1 |
| Rawlins | 4 | 2 |
| Torrington | 2 | 1 |
| Green River | 1 | 2 |
| Riverton | 0 | 2 |
| Kemmerer | 0 | 1 |
For the Wyoming high school version, I limited the potential transfer of the trophy to in-state, varsity teams; we can’t have some out-of-state team taking Wyoming’s MacGuffin with them, and we can’t be giving it to a town team, JV team or college team, either. So it’s only up for grabs in varsity vs. varsity, in-state games.
And here’s a look at how those games have gone, and who’s played in those games:
| Team | MacG Wins | MacG Losses | MacG Games | Last MacGame | Last held |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sheridan | 172 | 72 | 244 | 2022 | 2022 |
| Natrona | 145 | 80 | 225 | 2022 | 2019 |
| Laramie | 115 | 81 | 196 | 2022 | 2000 |
| Cheyenne Central | 91 | 81 | 171 | 2022 | 2020 |
| Rock Springs | 55 | 75 | 130 | 2022 | 2021 |
| Campbell County | 63 | 64 | 127 | 2022 | 2016 |
| Cheyenne East | 50 | 71 | 121 | 2022 | 2021 |
| Worland | 76 | 13 | 89 | 1977 | 1959 |
| Kelly Walsh | 25 | 48 | 73 | 2022 | 2005 |
| Cody | 13 | 30 | 43 | 2004 | 1977 |
| Thermopolis | 19 | 21 | 40 | 1974 | 1947 |
| Rawlins | 6 | 33 | 39 | 1988 | 1974 |
| Evanston | 8 | 25 | 33 | 2016 | 2007 |
| Lander | 15 | 16 | 31 | 1988 | 1974 |
| Riverton | 2 | 29 | 31 | 2008 | 1972 |
| Green River | 3 | 24 | 27 | 2010 | 2007 |
| Powell | 11 | 16 | 27 | 1977 | 1958 |
| Lovell | 11 | 14 | 25 | 1959 | 1947 |
| Buffalo | 0 | 18 | 18 | 1984 | never |
| Torrington | 3 | 15 | 18 | 1966 | 1952 |
| Thunder Basin | 9 | 7 | 16 | 2022 | 2021 |
| Douglas | 7 | 6 | 13 | 1984 | 1952 |
| Cowley | 6 | 7 | 13 | 1935 | 1934 |
| Cheyenne South | 0 | 11 | 11 | 2022 | never |
| Greybull | 0 | 11 | 11 | 1959 | never |
| Basin | 0 | 7 | 7 | 1934 | never |
| Newcastle | 0 | 6 | 6 | 1932 | never |
| Kemmerer | 1 | 4 | 5 | 1940 | 1932 |
| Star Valley | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1998 | never |
| Midwest | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1952 | never |
| Lusk | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1969 | never |
| St. Mary's | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1952 | never |
| Superior | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1936 | never |
| University Prep | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1909 | never |
| Jackson | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1974 | never |
| Ten Sleep | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1933 | never |
| Manderson | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1928 | never |
| Sundance | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1935 | never |
One of the challenges of a traveling trophy like this is that it needs to travel. Due to Class 4A’s round-robin schedule, the MacGuffin has been, and will continue to be unless the schedule changes, the exclusive domain of Wyoming’s big schools. The last interclass game where the MacGuffin was up for grabs was in 1998, when Evanston held onto the trophy by nudging Star Valley 13-7.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown of all 907 Wyoming football MacGuffin games.
Even though Slim’s presence in any school’s trophy case is still just theoretical, it’s still fun to look at where Slim may have gone on his travels around the state and which schools, even if only for a week, got to have him in their possession.
–patrick
It sounds like a fun deal, except it would probably be limited to 4A if Sheridan has it.
John, as said in the post:
“One of the challenges of a traveling trophy like this is that it needs to travel. Due to Class 4A’s round-robin schedule, the MacGuffin has been, and will continue to be unless the schedule changes, the exclusive domain of Wyoming’s big schools. The last interclass game where the MacGuffin was up for grabs was in 1998, when Evanston held onto the trophy by nudging Star Valley 13-7.”
—patrick