It seemed to make a few people mad that I predicted early in the year that no Utah County football team would play for a state title in 2005.
Making a claim like that after the valley's football teams were clearly the cream of the state's pigskin crop in 2004 made more than one reader question my intelligence.
I wasn't slamming or discrediting the local schools, as some claimed. I simply believed that the 4A schools up north were returning more talent than the schools in Utah Valley. Talent in high school athletic programs, for the most part, is cyclical. Schools have strong classes and they have weak classes. The 2004 crop was one of those exceptionally strong groups for several Utah Valley schools. The 2005 crop has proven to be exceptionally strong for the schools north of Utah County.
Every local team that was a power in 2004 lost the core of their talent. While schools like Mountain Crest and Cottonwood were returning almost their entire rosters. Cottonwood, for example, should have won the 5A crown in 2004 and almost every player from that team was back, and the Colts dropped a classification. How could I pick one of the local teams to top that?
Also, I didn't think any school in Region 4, the new 5A league, would be confident enough in their new classification to get past the traditional powers in the playoffs. They could maybe beat one or two of them, but not make a run through them all in the playoffs. Even the Region 4 coaches admitted to a lot of uncertainty about their first year at the 5A level. Had American Fork and Lone Peak remained at the 4A level, then I might have felt differently because of the confidence they would have carried.
Even though the prediction of no state football champ in 2005 for Utah Valley turned out to be true, another call I made did not. I still expected at least one 4A team to make it past the quarterfinals and predicted that either American Fork or Lone Peak would win their first-round game. This is only the second time in the past 16 years that Utah County has been shut out of the football semifinals. It also happened in 2001.
I still believe the Cavemen and Knights are among the state's best football teams, they were simply matched up against formidable foes in round one. Both lost to teams that will likely meet in the 5A championship game. If either team had been in a more favorable bracket they'd still be playing. West Jordan, a team the Lone Peak beat in the preseason, is in the final four so that's an indication that the Knights were surely capable of reaching that point as well.
There are many factors that determine a team's success — talent is not the only thing. Pairings, like I said, are more favorable to some teams than others. Some days, high school kids show up mentally prepared to compete; on other days, they don't. Injuries, confidence and luck also come into play.
Although all of Utah Valley's football teams are done for the year, the season still had several positives.
At the beginning of the season, I thought Timpview had too many holes to fill from last year's team to be any where near as dominant as the T-Birds were last season. But they surprised me and came close. In the end, I think their lack of playoff experience in a few critical positions was the difference.
No team lost as many starters as Springville, yet this year's Red Devils bunch did what last year's region champions did not — win a playoff game. The Red Devils even gave Mountain Crest a good battle for three quarters.
Orem had a disappointing regular season but got some satisfaction out of the year by knocking off Bountiful on the road in round one. The Tigers were simply overmatched depth-wise by Highland in round two.
Many would say that Pleasant Grove had no business even being in the playoffs. The Vikings have the biggest upset of the playoffs as proof that they did belong in the post season.
This was supposed to be a promising year for Spanish Fork, but key injuries to the Dons front line took its toll. Skilled thrower Griff Robles simply did not have enough protection to play up to his potential.
Provo's great year was soured by losing its final three games. But I think the young Bulldogs will be even better next year simply by knowing how horrible it feels to fade like that.
It was also an up-and-down year for me. Yea, I predicted that it would be an off-year for the valley's teams in the playoffs, and I also picked about 90 percent of the game winners during the regular season, but my playoff game predictions were a horrible 4-8. Obviously, the brackets were even too difficult for me to handle.
E-mail: jimr@desnews.com