by nathan oster
It will be an unusual but fun start to the season for the Greybull Buffs.
Riverside will come to town Friday night for what will be the only meeting of the season between the two longtime rivals.
The catch is that the game won’t count — at least in the standings. 
The two teams moved to new conferences this year, and for the Buffs, that meant seven of the eight slots on their schedule had to be reserved for conference opponents. That left just one open date for a non-conference opponent — and for the Buffs, that foe will be Big Horn.
To keep their rivalry alive, the two teams agreed to a Week 0 matchup, which in essence, makes it a practice game.
Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.
“In one respect, it will look at lot like a regular season game,” said Coach John Cundall. “But in another … you will see a lot of different combinations of kids. It’s still a competition, but it’s a Week 0 competition.
“It gives our kids a chance to get things done against a different opponent, rather than against themselves in practice.”
Cundall said the opening week of practice went well. Last year the Buffs went 4-5, losing to Big Horn in the opening round of the Class 2A playoffs. From that team, the Buffs graduated five seniors: Kyle Ellison, Trevor Jensen, Mick Gonzalez, Curtis Winkler and Daniel Grovenstein.
This year the Buffs begin with a roster of 39, which includes seven seniors, 12 juniors, 11 sophomores and nine freshmen.
The Buffs return their leading rusher in quarterback Clay Cundall (788 yards, 10 TDs on 133 carries), as well as virtually their entire stable of running backs in Chayce Goton (104-423), Shane Clucas (86-392) and Randall Johns (48-207).
Among last season’s top pass-catchers, the Buffs return Hayden Goton, who caught four balls for 39 yards and a touchdown from his tight end position, as well as Nate Gossens, who had one catch for 16 yards.
Defensively the Buffs lost their top two tacklers in Jensen and Ellison, but return Wes Ridgway (99 defensive points), Clay Cundall (93) and Shane Clucas (67).
Several of the returnees attended camps this summer and have improved, said Cundall.
“The kids showed up in good shape, and obviously, we’ve just been working on a lot of fundamental things,” said Cundall. “It helps we have a lot of returning players. We have a lot of work to do, but the kids are working hard.”
When asked to size up the Buffs’ new conference, Cundall said he isn’t concerned about it.
“Haven’t thought about that at all,” he said. “We just have to take care of ourselves. There are a lot of fine 2A teams in the state and after we get going, that will sort itself out some.”
He did say that Glenrock, which is moving down to 2A after winning the 3A crown last year, has to be a favorite, as does Kemmerer, the 3A runner up that also finds itself in 2A this year. Of the two, only Kemmerer appears on the Greybull schedule.
The rest of the conference consists of Mountain View, Wyoming Indian, Pinedale, Lovell, Big Piney and Lyman.
Looking at Riverside, Cundall said his first objective is improvement.
“There will be a lot of opening-game jitters, first competition mistakes, but we want it to be as clean as possible,” said Cundall. “We realize there are going to be mistakes. We are looking for great effort —  people hustling to get around the football, taking care of the things that need to be taken care of.
“Both teams will want to play well. It doesn’t go down in the final standings, but the way that the rivalry is, with the schools being so close and the kids being  good friends off the field, you know that it’ll be a game in which  both teams will want to play well, play hard and do their best.”