Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
They lost the first game they ever played. Almost a century ago, an 18-0 loss to Lincoln County rival Kemmerer on November 5, 1927. The Cokeville Panthers only played two games that inaugural season, but they went .500 with a 27-0 win over Soda Springs, Idaho a week later.
There is something special about Cokeville football. It’s not flashy, it’s not trendy and it has no resemblance to the feigned efforts of more modern programs that try to mimic the five out, no back, shotgun offenses of the NFL. By the way, the Panthers routinely pummel those teams.
Before the season began as I was looking through schedules among the five classifications of Wyoming prep football, I noticed that Worland and Torrington had switched positions. Worland dropped to 2-A football and Torrington moved up to 3-A.
The Warriors had Powell, Thermopolis and Lovell on the schedule, all familiar opponents they’ve played many dozens of times over the years in the old Big Horn Basin Conference. But they had some new opponents in Lyman, Mountain View, Kemmerer and yes, Cokeville.
It just didn’t seem right in my mind that Worland should be playing Cokeville at all.
The Warriors were a power in AA from 1960 to 1982, AA is the modern Class 4-A and Worland mixed it up regularly with Kelly Walsh, Rock Springs, Cody, Sheridan and Gillette. To see them in Class 2-A was an enigma, but it wasn’t some Machiavellian scheme, it was simple mathematics, their enrollment moved them from the bottom of Class 3-A to the top of Class 2-A. They’ll have only 327 students in high school when the term begins next August. Torrington and Buffalo in 3-A, and Pinedale in 2-A have larger enrollments.
I noticed the Warriors would be playing at Cokeville on October 18th and thought about what Worland would find down in “Death Valley” as we called the field head coach Todd Dayton coached on for so many years when I was coaching in Shoshoni.
What the Warriors would find is an old school program with more pride and tradition than a dozen other schools combined. The Panthers have 22 state championships and sport 13 unbeaten seasons in their history.
They don’t pass much, they’ve ran the same tackle-trap play for the last four decades, they pull their guards, they double-team at the point of attack, they run out of a full house set most of the time, they punt on fourth down and they play position football.
On defense you rarely get slobber knocked by a Panther tackler. They gang tackle, they make contact and hold it without hitting so hard that they pop off the running back and they win.
Even their kicking game is reminiscent of the early 60s. You don’t see soccer style kickers wearing the orange and white. Odds are that few people in Cokeville have ever watched a soccer game. The kicker is a “toe jammer,” in other words he kicks straight on with a rubber sleeve around his ankle that pulls up his toe. They don’t kick many field goals, but they don’t miss many extra points either.
At a Riverton 7th grade game a few weeks ago, I spoke with Riverton head coach Mark Lenhardt about Cokeville and the upcoming game with Worland.
Mark is knowledgeable in all levels of Wyoming football. He pays attention to 6-man and 9-man as much as he does the other three 11-man divisions.
“Cokeville plays solid football,” Mark said. “They’ll probably beat Worland.”
He was right. The Panthers won 22-7 over the Warriors.
Cokeville should not be playing Class 2-A 11-man football. Their official enrollment is 68 students which makes them eight smaller than Riverside, the largest school in the 6-man division.
It’s an interesting tradition over on the Idaho border. They want to play 11-man football, and they’ll play anyone, anytime, anywhere to accomplish that goal.
The names haven’t changed much since they put on leather helmets, high topped cleats and played games in the southwest.
Kemmerer, Star Valley, Mountain View, Reliance, Superior, Big Piney, Lyman, and Pinedale were all original opponents in the early years.
In 1976, the Panthers played their first Fremont County team with a 49-2 win over the Dubois Rams.
Despite the modern desire to stay in the 11-man game, historically the Panthers have played in the smaller denominations.
From 1939 to 1957, Cokeville played 6-man football and had years with so few boys out that they canceled the season eight times.
From 1958 to 1968 they played the 8-man variety of prep football as did Pavillion, Dubois, Morton, and Shoshoni.
Since 1969, they’ve played the 11-man game.
In 2020, reclassification called for the Panthers to drop to 6-man. They declined and elected to skip the new 9-man league filled with familiar opponents across the state to play up two classifications.
Since then, they’ve scored wins over Thermopolis and Lovell and dropped back-to-back opening round 2-A playoff games at Torrington.
Torrington is six miles from Nebraska and Cokeville just four from Idaho, it doesn’t seem possible for two schools that far apart to play each other, but that’s the nature of playoff football in a state as vast and empty of people as Wyoming is.
The Panthers have just one loss in Wyoming this season a 14-6 decision against West 2-A leader Mountain View. They play at Lovell on Friday. The winner likely takes the second seed into the playoffs, but a Lyman upset over Mountain View and a Panther win in Big Horn County gives them the top seed.
If you’re a football fan, and a fan of effort, desire and fundamentals, it’s hard not to like Cokeville.
In my 15 years in Shoshoni, we only beat them once, 6-0 at Harold Bailey Field, and lost twice 7-6 in “Death Valley” with the remainder of the games lopsided wins by the Panthers.
I’ll admit, I’m a fan even though I live 250 miles away.