Two weeks into the high school football playoffs for the state’s two largest classifications, 6A has unfolded about how everyone expected, while 5A has been hit with its annual stick of dynamite.
While six of the top eight seeds reached the 6A quarterfinals, only three of the top eight remain in 5A. Among the 5A teams still alive are No. 23 Wasatch, No. 21 Olympus and No. 19 Alta, who’ve all won two road playoff games to get to this point. Alta engineered the most stunning result last week, beating No. 3 seed Springville 34-27 after leading 31-0 at the half.
Alta travels to No. 11 seed Orem in Friday’s quarterfinal. Orem upset No. 6 seed Bountiful to reach the quarterfinals as it continues to prove that RPI seeding in 5A is largely meaningless.
In the first three years the UHSAA used the RPI rankings to seed the playoffs, Orem reached the semifinals as a No. 12, No. 2 and No. 21 seed. It will try and reach the Final Four again as a No. 11 seed this week.
As chaos continued to reign in 5A, things in 6A played out as expected last week. According to the seeding, No. 9 West and No. 11 Lone Peak pulled off upsets to reach the quarterfinals, but most would argue the seeds were wrong in both instances and the better team won anyway.
It now sets up an interesting possibility.
For the all talk about how great Region 4 has been the past three years and how it’s the SEC of the Utah high school football — which is probably all true — it has never advanced four teams to the semifinals in the same season. It could happen this week as all will be favored in their quarterfinal.
No. 1 Corner Canyon hosts No. 9 West; No. 2 Skyridge hosts Davis; No. 4 American Fork hosts No. 5 Farmington; and No. 11 Lone Peak travels to No. 3 Bingham.
In each of the past three years Region 4 placed three teams in the semis, but never four. Last year, Region 1’s Weber crashed the party, but it didn’t have to beat a Region 4 team to get there. Top seed Corner Canyon beat No. 8 seed American Fork in the quarterfinals.
The year before East spoiled the all-Region 4 affair when it beat American Fork in the quarterfinals.
In 2019 it was East again that reached the semis in a state tournament that was a jumbled mess. Lone Peak reached the semifinals as a No. 20 seed that year after it was forced to forfeit five victories because of a clerical error. Instead of finishing with a 6-4 record it ended the year with a 1-9 record. On its march to the semifinals it beat Region 4 foe and No. 4 seed Skyridge 30-6 in the second round.
Fast forward to this season and the top four Region 4 teams ended up in different quadrants of the 6A playoff bracket, which created a pathway for a potential all-Region 4 semifinal.
West coach Olosa’a Solovi said he’s excited about the chance to see how his team measures up against Corner Canyon in the quarterfinals.
“We know they’re going to be good, but this isn’t going to be a ‘David vs. Goliath’ type of game,” Solovi said. “We can take care of ourselves, and our kids know it.”
While there’s a clear theme emerging in 6A on the path to Rice-Eccles Stadium, in 5A the themes are much more obscure with higher seeds dropping like dominos.
In the end, it may not matter. No. 1 Lehi and No. 2 Timpview were far and away the two best teams in 5A during the regular season, and among the best in the entire state. Lehi beat Corner Canyon in the preseason as it finished with a 10-0 record, whereas Timpview beat Lone Peak and Bingham in the preseason and its only preseason loss came to Skyridge in a tight game it actually led at one point 13-0.
The only other top eight seed remaining in 5A is No. 4 Stansbury, which is one victory away from a repeat 5A semifinal appearance. It fell to Lehi 28-14 in the semis a year ago, and if both teams win this weekend they’d meet again in this year’s semis. Lehi went on to win last year’s 5A state title as a No. 7 seed.
As for the other side of the bracket, assuming Timpview takes care of business against Wasatch in the quarterfinals it would meet the winner of Alta-Orem in the semis. It beat both by 20-plus points in September region games.
If a Magic 8 Ball tried predicting the next two weeks of the 5A playoffs, it would certainly reveal, “All signs point to yes” about a Lehi-Timpview championship game. It would have the makings of a classic title bout as Lehi narrowly beat Timpview 28-24 last month in a back-and-forth affair.
No coach will want to talk about looking that far ahead, but Lehi coach Ed Larson was very pleased with how his team played in the second-round win over Park City.
“I loved how our defense responded all night. Keeping them off the scoreboard until the last drive. I also loved our offense. Jackson Brousseau had a wonderful night distributing the ball to several receivers. Carson Gonzalez was back to full strength and gave us a great night,” said Larson.
