Way back in the summer when the Deseret News released its 5A coaches preseason rankings, the top three teams were Lehi, Timpview and Orem.
Fast forward through 13 weeks of the high school football season and all three are still playing football heading into this Friday’s 5A state tournament semifinals at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
Lehi and Timpview haven’t moved from the top two spots in the rankings all season and remain the favorites to meet in the title game. Orem, meanwhile, took some serious lumps along the way and needed some playoff magic to reach the semis, but here it is for the sixth straight season.
The one party crasher is Stansbury based on the preseason rankings. Realistically though, it just missed out on making the preseason top five rankings and after it cracked the rankings after a dominant Week 1 performance it never left them.
The semifinals get underway on Friday at 11 a.m. with No. 1 seed Lehi facing No. 4 Stansbury followed at 2:30 p.m. with No. 2 seed Timpview taking on No. 11 Orem.
Both are rematches from within the past year.
Lehi beat Stansbury 28-14 in last year’s semifinal on its way to winning the 5A state championship, whereas Timpview beat Orem 62-42 back in Week 8.
For Lehi, its title defense nearly ended in the quarterfinals last week as it was barely rallied past Box Elder 28-21 by scoring two touchdowns in the final two minutes.
“I felt like Al Davis last weekend, I don’t think we deserved to win, but “just win baby,” that’s all we did. I think we got away with one. I’m still kind of licking my wounds over that one,” said Lehi coach Ed Larson.
Lehi had to overcome three interceptions in the first half to escape with the win, and Larson knows giving extra possessions to Stansbury’s fast-paced, explosive offense in the semis won’t be a winning formula.
Larson said in particular he’s been impressive with how much Stansbury QB Ezra Harris has improved from last season.
“He was good last year, but he’s even more impressive this year. He’s tough, he runs like a fullback freight train, and then he throws the ball down the field so much better than he did a year ago,” said Larson.
Both teams are 12-0 heading into the semifinals, with Stansbury averaging 51.3 ppg and Lehi averaging 43.0 ppg.
For Stansbury coach Eric Alder, he said the team is thrilled to be in the semis once again but the squad arrives with a different level of expectations.
“We didn’t know where we were going to fit in 5A the year before,” said Alder, who said the players and coaches probably had a little stage fright in the semis a year ago.
Throughout this season he said the team played with an expectation of returning to the semifinals because that’s where they belonged.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to still be playing football and be part of the final four. But yet there’s a certain sense that’s a little bit difference than last year that this is where we belong, and there’s still more to accomplish,” said Alder.
Stansbury steamrolled Olympus 42-7 in the quarterfinals, and Alder isn’t reading too much into Lehi’s struggles to do the same thing.
“The human nature tendency is to look at it and think they’re not invincible, they’re beatable. But I know at the same time I know they’ll rebound, they’ll be ready to go and prepped and prepared to be at their best. Their roster is full of talented players, really good football player,” said Alder.
In the second semifinal on Friday, Timpview and Orem will renew their recent intense rivalry that includes championship game showdowns in both 2019 and 2020, both won by the Tigers.
Orem had its streak of four straight state titles snapped last season, and despite strong preseason expectations heading into this season, it struggled to live up to them.
Its humbling losses included Pleasant Grove 47-0 in Week 3, Skyridge 54-7 in Week 4, Timpview 62-42 in Week 8 and Lehi 55-21 in Week 10.
Orem beat Uintah, Bountiful and Alta in the playoffs to reach the semis, and resilience has been key. Orem overcame five turnovers to beat Bountiful in the second round and then more mistakes in a sloppy quarterfinal win over Alta.
“We’re feeling good. I don’t think too many people picked us to get this far, but that’s why you play the game,” said Orem coach Gabe Sewell. “The mental toughness above all is probably what I think the most improvement has been over the course of the season.”
Sewell’s message to his team this week leading up to the rematch with Timpview is a pretty simple one.
“We can’t play like this again especially against Timpview. We need to be almost perfect, like laser-like, surgical-precision perfect if we expect to come out on top in this game,” he said.
Timpview’s only losses this season have been against 5A top seed Lehi and 6A No. 2 seed Skyridge, and both of those were one-score games.
In its two playoff wins, Timpview dominated East 35-7 and then crushed Wasatch 63-21. The T-Birds have scored 40-plus points in seven games this season, including the previous blowout win over Orem.
The T-Birds are stacked with talent on both the offensive and defensive line and if Timpview avoids the big mistakes it figures to roll past Orem again and move within one victory of its first state title since 2014.