Let’s walk through a plausible scenario for Friday’s Class 4A football games:
- Natrona loses to Rock Springs in Rock Springs.
- Cheyenne East loses to Gillette in Gillette.
- Cheyenne South summons its early-season magic and beats Sheridan in Cheyenne.
- And Laramie and Kelly Walsh play until someone wins.
This potential setup would give us a heck of a mess for the fifth through eighth playoff seeds in Class 4A.
With losses by Natrona and East, a victory by South and any kind of an outcome aside from “canceled” in the Laramie-KW game, then Class 4A would finish with four teams at 4-5, tied for playoff seeds 5-8. (I wrote about the outcomes for all those ties here.)
In many ways, the Laramie-Kelly Walsh game is the lynchpin of the 4A playoff seeds. With four teams entering the final week of the regular season at 4-4, this is the only game that has two of those teams facing off. The winner is 5-4 and has the inside track to the fourth seed and a home playoff game, although the fourth seed is no guarantee, even with a victory.
But all it would take is one upset — specifically, South over Sheridan — to turn the 4A playoff seeding from an examination of gridiron supremacy to a mental exercise in tiebreaking procedures. The WHSAA handbook doesn’t even list four-way tiebreaking procedures under its “Football” section. Those are buried elsewhere.
This isn’t new. Class 4A in 2014 had the potential to finish with a four-way tie for seeds 5-8 or even a five-way tie for seeds 5-8 and a loser out. And entering Week 7, there was potential for a six-way tie for seeds 3-8 in 4A, although fortunately we’ll all avoid that conundrum.
Still, the potential 4A playoff seedings this year are a potential mess. But that’s also part of the fun when parity becomes the rule rather than the exception.
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Fortunately for the 4A schools involved, none of the 16 potential tiebreaking scenarios would involve a coin flip.
That’s not the case for teams in the 3A East, where coin flips could decide who makes the playoffs and who doesn’t.
Last year, the WHSAA did away with triangular playoffs for teams tied for playoff berths. Now, if teams are tied at the end of the season and a playoff berth is at stake — and all other tiebreaking methods fail — coaches flip coins.
The most likely scenario where this would play out is in the 3A East, where if favored teams Douglas, Riverton and Torrington win as expected, then Buffalo, Lander and Rawlins will all tie for the East’s No. 4 seed. In previous years, the three teams would have settled their differences on the field in a triangular playoff; this year, if that happens, the teams will flip coins, with only one team moving on to the postseason based on the outcome of those flips.
(In a coin flip like this, the odd team is out, and then the team that won the head-to-head game between the two remaining teams is the higher seed — or, in this case, the only seed. You can say that means that the teams decided it on the field, but ultimately it’s still dumb luck.)
The loss of the triangular playoff is kind of sad. I know some coaches hated them, and reasons like lost class time, additional travel and player safety are valid. But I liked the triangulars, if for no other reason they helped settle ties via play. I played in such a playoff in 1998 and, even though we lost, I appreciated the chance to have the differences settled on the field rather than by my coach’s thumb and a quarter.
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Other stuff I’m watching this week:
The Lovell-Pinedale game could be a doozy. Both teams have shown they could be spoilers in the 2A playoffs, and Lovell in particular needs the victory to qualify for the postseason. …
Class 1A 11-man has two true qualifying games — Wright at Southeast in the East and Wind River at Saratoga in the West. The winners will be the No. 4 seeds from their respective conferences, the losers will be out. …
I love to see all the rivalry games go down in 3A this week, with Cody-Powell, Riverton-Lander and Star Valley-Jackson all saved for the regular-season finales. All three are critical to playoff seeding, too, giving a little extra kick to each game. …
The only classifications with their eight playoff teams set are Class 4A and Class 1A six-man. In six-man, the game of the week is Snake River at Farson; the Rattlers notched a big OT victory last week against Burlington and could steal the West Conference’s top seed if they can give the Pronghorns their first loss of the season. …
Reminder: Kemmerer’s home game against Lyman could be an unofficial record-setter. A Ranger loss would give Kemmerer 36 consecutive losses, which would be the longest such streak in state history. I wrote about it last week. …
On to this week’s picks, where I’ve decided that consistency is the key to success and remained with my standard of indicating teams I’m predicting to win with bold type:
Friday
Class 4A
Cheyenne East at Gillette
Evanston at Cheyenne Central
Laramie at Kelly Walsh
Natrona at Rock Springs
Sheridan at Cheyenne South
Class 3A
Buffalo at Douglas
Cody at Powell
Rawlins at Torrington
Riverton at Lander
Star Valley at Jackson
Worland at Green River
Class 2A
Big Horn at Wheatland
Burns at Newcastle
Greybull at Big Piney
Lovell at Pinedale
Lyman at Kemmerer
Moorcroft at Glenrock
Mountain View at Thermopolis
Class 1A 11-man
Lusk at Pine Bluffs
Rocky Mountain at Wyoming Indian
Shoshoni at Cokeville
Tongue River at Upton-Sundance
Wind River at Saratoga
Wright at Southeast
Class 1A six-man
Hanna vs. Midwest (at Casper)
Kaycee at Normative Services
Lingle at Rock River
Riverside at Burlington
St. Stephens at Meeteetse
Saturday
Class 1A six-man
Guernsey-Sunrise at Hulett
Snake River at Farson
Ten Sleep at Dubois
For a full schedule with kickoff times, click here.
Lander’s victory to end a 23-game losing streak was awesome for the Tigers. But it really screwed with my picks. Snake River was the only other team to win despite not being bolded in my list.
Last week: 30-2 (94 percent). This season: 191-46 (81 percent).
We’re here. Week 8. Any surprises you see coming down the pike? Leave a comment and let’s commiserate over the last week of the regular season!
–patrick