TERRY COLUMN: Clearing up the Class AA playoff mess

High school football playoffs start this week, and for at least four Northwest schools, the path is clear.

Columbia Falls (4-3) will host Polson (3-5) in a rematch of a Week 7 slugfest that ended with a 35-26 Wildcats win. The winner will travel to Central A champion Havre (7-2) for a quarterfinal matchup and a likely chance at either Dillon (8-0) or Billings Central (6-2) in the semifinals.

Whitefish is off this week and will host the winner of Belgrade (3-5), the second seed in the Central A, and Laurel (5-3), a wildcard from the East.

Bigfork (5-3) will hit the road to face Roundup (3-5), the second seed from District 4B, with a trip to the quarterfinals on the table at either Missoula Loyola (6-1) or Cut Bank (4-4).

While the brackets are drawn up in the smaller divisions, there are few things that are clear in Class AA.

Seven of eight playoff spots have already been claimed, though the order could fluctuate wildly based on the results this weekend.

Glacier (7-2) could finish at any seed from three to six and Flathead (5-4) any place from six to eight, though both have already claimed spots in the postseason.

One thing is for certain, Billings Senior (9-1) will receive one of the top two seeds thanks to a forfeit this week by Missoula Hellgate (0-10), ending a miserable season for the Knights and giving the Broncs a bye week into the playoffs.

It’s also fairly easy to figure out most of the teams that are going to miss the playoffs.

Hellgate leads a swarm of bad football played in the state’s top division this year, with five teams entering this week with two or fewer wins. Great Falls High (2-7), Missoula Big Sky (2-7), Butte (1-8) and Billings Skyview (1-8) have all been eliminated from the playoff chase entering the final week.

Given all the eliminated teams lose this week, up to two positions will be cemented.

Bozeman (8-1) can clinch the top seed with a win at home over Skyview, which would knock Senior to the second seed because of the Hawks’ head-to-head win in Week 7. That would also leave both Helena Capital and Glacier at 8-2 in a tie for third and Great Falls C.M. Russell hanging on to its playoff hopes at 5-5.

The problem, however, is that leaves nine teams to fill eight spots. And those two spots will likely come down to two games: Helena High (7-2) at Billings West (6-3); and Missoula Sentinel (5-4) at Flathead.

Helena and West will decide the top seeds. Flathead and Sentinel will decide the lower seeds.

Should Helena win, the Bengals will tie Capital and Glacier for third and force a three-way tiebreaker. With each team winning a game against each other, Capital rises to the three seed due to its marquee win of the season, handing Bozeman its lone loss, 17-16 in Week 4 to mark the best strength-of-schedule victory of the three teams. With third out of the way, Helena High would host Glacier as the four seed, having won the head-to-head in Kalispell in the season opener.

Should West win its home game against Helena, Glacier would take the third seed with a head-to-head win against Capital, who would take the four. West would claim the fifth seed with a head-to-head win against the Bengals, who would fall to sixth and a trip to Kalispell against Glacier.

So, it seems, should Glacier beat Big Sky this week, and Capital beat Butte, the Wolfpack will probably be playing Helena, the only team its never beaten, for a chance to return to the state semifinals for a fifth straight year.

Flathead is in win or lose thanks to its opening week win over CMR. With a win over Sentinel and a Helena win, Flathead could rise to the sixth seed with a tiebreaker over West at 6-4. In that scenario, the Braves would travel to Capital for a rematch of a close game from two weeks ago. Should the Braves win and West wins, the Braves would be a seventh seed traveling to Billings Senior.

CMR will be rooting for Flathead in either scenario, the Rustlers only making the playoffs with a crosstown win over Great Falls High and a Braves win over Sentinel. That would put CMR in a tie for eighth with the Spartans, the Rustlers then making the playoffs as the eighth seed with a strength-of-schedule victory over Helena High in Week 3.

Should Sentinel win on Friday, things are a little clearer, with the Spartans claiming the seventh seed and the Braves the eighth.

Got it? That’s all clear right? Pretty cut and dry?

If there’s one upset in the other four games this weekend, practically everything changes.

And if history is a judge, that wouldn’t be a stretch.