Happy New Year, and all that…Our focus hasn’t and won’t change here.  We are locked in on Iowa High School Football.  Today we pick up our look back on the football decade 2000-2009 with the teams that made up 2A District Two the past two seasons.  What a mess.  This is a collection of teams that were subject to many changes and movement from class to class.  Bear with me as I try to decipher just what went on here.  The only clean and easy part is the 2008 and 2009 seasons.  Here are the schools and their stories…

Overall Regular Season Record:

Eagle Grove 48-42

Cherokee 40-32 in 2A, 8-10 in 3A…48-42 total

Clarion-Goldfield 37-35 in 2A, 3-15 in 1A…40-50 total

Pocahontas Area/Pomeroy-Palmer 35-19 in 2A (13-5 as PA/P-P in 2008, 2009) (22-14 as PA 2000-2003), 21-15 in 1A as PA 2004-2007…56-34 total

Okoboji, Milford 26-46 in 2A, 11-5 in 8-player, 2000-2001

East Sac 17-19

Humboldt 4-14 in 2A, 36-36 in 3A…40-50 total

Buffalo Ridge 4-16

Wow.  Eagle Grove is the only team here to play in 2A all ten years.  Lots of movement and changes, and no team had an undefeated season.  Not a lot of winning going on here, either.  Humboldt spent the first eight seasons of the decade in 3A, and has struggled the past two in 2A.  East Sac has only been a program since 2006, when Sac City and Wall Lake View Auburn combined.  Those schools will be discussed on their own in a later post.  Buffalo Ridge also is a fairly new program.  They have played the past two seasons after Galva-Holstein and Schaller-Crestland combined.  They also managed to play two 10-game schedules.  Pocahontas picked up Pomeroy-Palmer for the 2008 season.  P-P played together from 2002-2007, and Pomeroy was by itself in 2000-2001.  We will see them later.  Okoboji, Milford is the first team we have seen to this point that emerged from the eight-player game, where they got started in 2000 and 2001.  On to the district numbers…

Overall District Record:

Eagle Grove 35-35 (one undefeated district season)

Cherokee 33-24 in 2A, 7-7 in 3A…40-31 total *(8-game district schedule in 2002)

Pocahontas Area/Pomeroy-Palmer 27-15 in 2A (11-3 as PA/P-P in 2008-2009) (16-12 as PA 2000-2003), 19-9 in 1A as PA 2004-2007 (one undefeated district season in 1A)…46-24 total

Clarion-Goldfield 26-30 in 2A, 3-11 in 1A…29-41 total

Okoboji, Milford 18-38 in 2A, *no district record in eight-player, not eligible for playoffs

East Sac 15-13

Humboldt 4-10 in 2A, 28-28 in 3A (one undefeated district season in 3A)…32-38 total

Buffalo Ridge 1-13

Not much excitement here.  Only Eagle Grove had a decent non-district record (13-7) and a clean district season in 2A competition (2009).  That should indicate that the postseason story will be a short one.  Let’s find out…

Overall Postseason/Playoff Record:

Substate record, playoff record, years qualified

Okoboji, Milford 1-0, 1-1, 1

Cherokee 0-2, 0-1, 1 in 2A, x-x, 0-1, 1 in 3A

Clarion-Goldfield x-x, 0-1, 1

Eagle Grove 1-1, 0-2, 2

Humboldt x-x, 4-1, 2 in 3A (one semifinal, one final, ONE TITLE in 3A 2006)

Pocahontas Area/Pomeroy-Palmer 0-2 in 2A, x-x, 1-1, 1 in 1A

One.  One playoff victory in 2A between eight teams for the decade.  Not good.  Now, granted, Humboldt hoisted a trophy, but that was in 3A.  And, it was a remarkable, tough team that was fun to watch, but it was 3A.  They beat Clear Lake, 27-9, for the record.  Okoboji won a first-round game in 2008, 21-17 over Unity Christian before dropping their quarterfinal bout with Central Lyon/GLR, 28-7.  That’s pretty much it for these teams.  In fairness, Pocahontas won a 1A game in 2005, and had two 7-2 seasons and one 6-3 season in 1A that were not playoff teams.  Let’s just move on…