“We’re excited about where we are at right now heading into the league” – the opening statement of Star Valley Head Coach McKay Young during our interview with him during this week’s edition of First Bank Of Wyoming Sports Friday. Where they are at, is sitting at 3-1 in their 1st 4 games all of which were non-conference of course, and sitting at #2 in the WyoPreps coaches and media poll for 3A across the state of Wyoming.

I think most teams would be pretty excited about that start as well.

“Good wins especially working on being able to throw the football against both Preston and Riverton. We’re hoping it is something that will pay dividends as we go down the road.” – Coach Young’s thoughts on what the out of conference games mean to the team even though they won’t impact playoff seeding.

Throw the football they most certainly did as well, in those 2 games Star Valley had the most and 2nd most passing yards in a single game of any 3A team all season to this point putting up 388 yards and 5 touchdowns through the air against Preston, then 2 weeks later topping their own record with 434 yards and 6 touchdowns against Riverton.

This surge in the passing attack has bolted the Braves into the top team in the state in the 3A division in passing offense both in yardage, averaging nearly 300 yards per game, and in touchdowns where their 13 are 5 more than the 2nd best 8 by the Cody Broncs. It has also put the Braves into the 2 spot in total offense for the season behind only defending state champs Cody.

Young doesn’t believe the shift has anything to do with a philosophy change by the coaching staff but rather that the combination of this years’ athletes and the need to find a way to match up with the Cody Broncs has led to the Braves desire to get more out of the passing game this season, “We just feel like with the guys we have right now and looking to what we think can make us competitive to win a state championship this year, we feel like that’s got to be a bigger part of what we do in 2022.”

Coach Young also believed that perhaps the most beneficial game for Star Valley during this stretch may have been their lopsided loss to Sugar Salem, saying “Just really good stuff on film that you don’t get with a blowout win against somebody else. So we’re grateful for the humble pie that they served us up that night, it was delicious.”

This is often a common thought among coaches at every level of the game that you learn so much more from a good loss than you ever could from a one sided win, and we shall see as conference play begins this week if that theory holds up nicely for the Braves.

The Braves will also finish their regular season with 3 of their final 4 games being at home and their lone road game being in Jackson, a game in which most seasons Star Valley fans tend to travel fairly easily and in good numbers for. Coach Young informed us that “Time on the bus is not a bad thing [] time in the hotel is not a bad thing” harkening back to a story he heard from an ex-member of the 2006 Indianapolis Colts who claims when he reunites with his old teammates it is never the games or plays they talk about but rather the stories of practice and travel. That early season time on the road was, as far as Coach Young is concerned, the best possible thing for team building and chemistry.

You can catch the remainder of the Braves season right here on the SVI broadcast network, radio coverage on Swift 98.7 and video coverage on SVI 1 here on svinews.com.