New Rockford-Sheyenne/Maddock’s football season wasn’t just utterly dominant — it was historic in the team’s history.
The current co-op with Maddock has only been active since 2023, but New Rockford has football records going all the way back to 1975. Statistically, the 2024 regular season was the best it’s ever had. The Rockets put up 501 total points — the most they’ve ever scored in a regular season — and allowed just 50 — the fewest they’ve allowed in a regular season.
Previously, New Rockford’s highest point total in a regular season had been 430 in 2018. That’s an average of 53.75 points per game. For reference, NR-S/M averaged 62.63 points per game this year — nearly nine points higher. The Rockets went 8-0 in 2018 before eventually losing in their second playoff game, finishing 9-1 overall.
This year’s Rockets took only seven games to beat that record. After a 69-8 win over North Star, they already had 440 points on the season — beating the previous record by 10. They added to their record with 61 more points in their regular-season finale against Hatton/Northwood.
When counting playoffs, there are still two New Rockford teams, historically, that scored more points than the Rockets have right now. Interestingly enough, the 2018 team was not one of them. The 2018 Rockets finished with exactly 500 points when factoring in their two playoff games — literally just a single point short of the 2024 team’s regular-season total.
The New Rockford team with the most points in a full season was the 2019 team, with 530. The Rockets went 7-1 in the regular season that year and 8-2 when including the playoffs. They averaged 53 points per game over the full 10-game season — once again, well below the 62.63 average the current team is on.
The 2012 team also scored more points than the 2024 team currently has. It put up 512, just 11 higher than the current team’s. That was the year the Rockets won the only state championship in their history. They went 12-0, which is, of course, impressive, but it also means they played more games and only averaged 42.67 points per game. The 2024 team is obliterating that rate by nearly 20 points.
The point is, barring a sudden collapse, the current team should be able to beat those marks fairly easily. The Rockets get a bye this week before beginning their 2024 playoff run on Oct. 26 against the winner of North Prairie vs. Nelson County. A couple of touchdowns will be enough to beat the 2012 team’s point total. And, for a team averaging more than 60 points a game, it’ll need less than half of that to surpass the 2019 team’s 530.
This has a serious chance to be the best New Rockford football team of all time.
When looking at the opposite side of the ball — points allowed — the numbers are just as dominant, though things get a little more complicated. Some of the records from the 1970s, ‘80s and even ‘90s have missing scores, making the database slightly incomplete.
But, among seasons with no missing scores, the fewest total points New Rockford had previously allowed in a season, including playoffs, was 115 in 1985. The Rockets went 7-2 that year and averaged 12.78 points allowed per game. This year, they’ve allowed just 50, good for an average of 6.25 per game. No matter which way you slice it, that’s an absolutely incredible mark to put up over an entire regular season.
It’s at least worth noting that the 1998 team allowed 77 points over seven recorded contests, but with missing scores from two games. Among the handful of years with missing scores, that’s really the only one that could even potentially sniff the kind of pace this year’s team is on. Even still, that’s an average of 11 points per game (not counting the missing games), which is nearly twice as high as the 2024 team’s average.
New Rockford consolidated with Sheyenne in 2006, which began what we can refer to as the “modern era” of New Rockford football, for all intents and purposes. The fewest points New Rockford-Sheyenne has allowed during a full season in the modern era is 124, which came during that incredible 2018 campaign. That was an average of 12.4 per game — again, nearly twice as high as the current team’s average.
That’s how good this team has been.
Of course, the numbers are still incomplete as long as the Rockets are still alive in the playoffs. But the regular season is done, which makes it fun to look back at past seasons while excluding the playoffs for comparison purposes.
The 2018 team allowed 84 points during the regular season — an impressive total, no doubt, but still 34 more than this year’s team permitted in the same amount of games. The next-closest was the 1985 team’s 93 points allowed.
So, by all accounts, it was the best regular season in New Rockford football history. The only question, now, is whether it will hold up through the playoffs.
Let’s say the Rockets want to do two things. One is to win the state championship (which will require four more games). The other is to beat these individual records, for prosperity’s sake if nothing else. They would have to allow 64 or fewer points total, meaning an average of 16 per game.
The crazy thing is, that’s very doable with the way this team has been going. NR-S/M allowed a double-digit point total in just two individual games all season.
Another thing that makes the points-allowed record slightly more complicated, though, is that the team is “penalized” for playing more games in the postseason. That’s why looking at the average points per game can be helpful. For example: The 1985 team allowed fewer total points than the 2018 team (115 to 124), but the 2018 team had a lower average per game (12.4 to 12.78) because it played one more game.
Let’s be slightly less ambitious and say they just want to beat the average per game and not necessarily the total (while, of course, still playing four more games and winning the state championship). The Rockets, currently averaging 6.25 points allowed per game, would have to allow no more than 148 points total. Subtract the 50 they’ve already allowed during the regular season, and that means they have to allow no more than 98 points over their four playoff games. That’s an average of 24.5 per game.
That’s a lot more doable than the average of 16 per game, as previously discussed. Either way, this team is primed to make school history. The only real question is just how historical it will be.
Another important thing worth noting, though, is that the games will get tougher as the Rockets get deeper into the playoffs. Their first opponent will either be North Prairie or Nelson County, each of whom they blew out during the regular season. But the No. 2 Rockets could very well end up facing No. 3 Westhope/Newburg in the semifinals, or No. 1 LaMoure-Litchville/Marion in the state final.
It should be fascinating to see how NR-S/M matches up with these other top teams, considering they all dominated their opponents all season and haven’t actually faced each other in head-to-head competition. The Rockets’ dominance, winning no game by fewer than 30 points, wasn’t enough for the NDAPSSA voters to bump them into the top slot until the final week, which should give you an idea of just how good L-L/M is.
But, before the madness of the playoffs begin, it’s worth emphasizing just how historically great this year’s Rockets have been. Whether they repeat the 2012 team’s glory, or end up falling just short to the L-L/M Loboes, they’ve made a pretty compelling case to be crowned the best team in New Rockford’s 50-year history of football.