Last week the Cody Bronc Football team put up a whopping 61 points en route to their homecoming victory vs. Evanston. All 50 players on the varsity roster saw playing time. Now the Broncs get set to face the defending State Champs, the Star Valley Braves. Star Valley comes into this match-up with just one win on the season but don’t let that fool you. This is a team that’s still top five in Class 3A. Head Coach Matt McFadden could care less about their record.
“They’re a great program. They’re a great team. The teams they lost to, the two teams in Idaho lead their division, the team in Utah leads their division, they lost to Jackson who leads their division and Powell who’s number 3 in the State. I mean to us, throw out the record. They’re solid, they’re big, they’re a physical team. They’ve got some new kids from last year, they graduated a lot of seniors and I think early on those kids that were thrust in were getting used to those roles. What I’ve seen, is a team that has gotten better each week.”
As for the Broncs, they are heading into this match-up a little low on numbers and the starting line-up could have a bit of a different look. This week at practice is all about preparation for the Broncs.
“Well this week… We’ve got some new kids. You know we gotta get some kids ready to play. Have a few kids out and just making sure those kids are prepped and prepared for the reps they’re about to take. They’ve all been kids that have played in the past but now thrust into a starting role. They gotta be ready for that. So just getting the kids prepared that are going to play the most minutes.”
With just three weeks to go in the regular season Cody is set for one of their two longest road trips of the season today. Along with that, this will be the third straight homecoming game they’ve played in this year. Coach McFadden on the importance of being mentally prepared.
“You’ve gotta be willing to travel four-and-half, five hours on a bus and then stop and play a football game. I don’t know many places in the country that you do that. It does become a mental game. You know how do you prepare on the bus, how do you prepare, when do you start getting your mind right, when do you tone it down, when do you let them be loose. Luckily we’ve had some trips before this that, through trial and error, we can see what we need to work on. I’ve been impressed with our kids so far. I feel like our upperclassmen laid a good example on how to be business like on a travel trip.”
As for what it is like when these two teams meet on the gridiron… Coach McFadden says it doesn’t get any better than this.
“It’s always a big week with Star Valley. It’s always intense. It’s a big rivalry. They’re a great program. We don’t care about the records at this point. This is a game you’re going into Star Valley for homecoming, five o’clock, very proud program. It’s great football down there. We always enjoy going down there to play. It’s a long road trip, got to prepare yourself for that. So it’s really just gearing everything up. This is a playoff type game.”
A quick look at the playoff picture shows Cody is on top of the 3A West standings and another win today gets them one step closer to a number 1 seed for playoffs.
“Nobody’s out of the playoff situation. To be honest I haven’t done the math on it but I don’t think anybody’s out of first place. And in the West where it’s just murderers row, every week you have to come and play. It’s one week at a time. For us, I think we’ve started out, we’ve done what we wanted to do. We went 1-0 again last week and so we’re undefeated in conference. Now we have a team that is traditionally at the top of the conference, reigning State Champion. More importantly for us, a big conference game.”
The Cody Bronc Football team will be back in action later today as they make the trip to Afton Wyoming for a match-up with defending State Champions the Star Valley Braves. Join Mac Morey and myself for all the live play-by-play action on KODI AM 1400 and 96.7FM. Pre-game at 4:40, kick-off at 5pm.
