Football playoffs

[RUACAT]

High School football playoffs starting in full force this weekend. Anyone have insights on any of the games to watch this weekend? I'll be at the Helena High/Great Falls Bison game. I think Helena High will sneak by Great Falls, but they'll have to lock down Steele Harris who is a dual threat receiver/rusher.

CMR (5-4) should beat Butte (3-6), but the Bulldogs have won two straight and are averaging 26 points over the last 4 games after switching to junior QB Raeder Gray.

Bozeman (5-4) should run past Hellgate (3-6) behind QB Van Schockley. He leads the AA with 2,066 passing yards and has rushed for 566. However, Hellgate did upset Helena High at home last week.

Sentinel (6-2) hosts Billing Senior (2-7). Sentinel lost to Glacier by 34 and lost by 2 to #4 Missoula Big Sky. But Sentinel should roll over the Broncs.

Class A - The only team I'm familiar with is East Helena (7-2), who earned their first home playoff game and will host Glendive. The Vigilantes have been rolling behind the arm of junior QB Bearek Shuman and legs of Leo Longcake, who is averaging 116 yds rushing/game.

Stat of the day - Helena High has not won a state championship since 1932. My 87-year old mother, a 1955 graduate of Helena High has never seen them win a championship. My bold prediction is that East Helena, currently in it's 5th varsity year will win a championship next year with a team that would've been Helena High athletes if East Helena hadn't built a high school.

EDIT: Defending champion Capital High missed the playoffs for the first time in 8 or 9 years? The Bruins have won 13 state championships, the most in AA history. Capital High first opened it's doors in 1973, so they have won 25% of the championships since their inception. Crazy.

MHSA really needs to reconsider the AA playoff format. Is there a valid reason for 2-win teams to make the playoffs? I'd like to see it as a 6-team playoff, with the top seed from the East and West getting a first-round bye. Just my preference though.

[Cataholic]

I actually like the current format. You had multiple teams playing for the last playoff spots in last regular season games. If you only take 3 teams from each conference, the last couple of weeks could have meaningless games.

Also, it seems that the gap between the best teams and the worst teams seems to be wide every year. There is almost always 2 or 3 top teams in each conference, and then everyone else is a big gap away. Those top 2 or 3 teams though do change each season. If you have a couple of D1 athletes on a team, it is usually enough to be successful in Montana football.

[MSU01]

AA Quarterfinal games are set:

Bozeman High at Kalispell Glacier
Missoula Sentinel at Gallatin High
Great Falls High at Billings West
Great Falls CMR at Missoula Big Sky

[tetoncat]

Not many upsets in any class.

[Wrangler]

Class C 8-man quarterfinal predictions:

Fort Benton over Ennis
Scobey over St Regis
Belt over Flint Creek
Circle over Seeley-Swan

[MTCowpoke22]

Class C 8-man quarterfinal predictions:

Fort Benton over Ennis
Scobey over St Regis
Belt over Flint Creek
Circle over Seeley-Swan

An All North VS East semifinal! Those semifinal matchups are going to be great games.

[PapaG]

West at Glacier for AA

Pack has lost the last two title games on the road. We knew all season that getting home field was the goals, and they have it.

Go Pack!

[John K]

I see Brock Berryhill is the head coach at Scobey. He was an assistant at MSU under Mike Kramer in the mid 2000's, as well as a number of other college programs over the years, including some FBS schools. It says he graduated from Boise State, but I could swear I remember him playing QB for some Big Sky team. I wanna say it might have been Cal State Northridge, when they were in the BSC. I couldn't find any info about his playing career though. It just seems a bit odd to me, that a guy who's coached at the highest level of college football would end up as the head coach at someplace like Scobey MT.

[John K]

West at Glacier for AA

Pack has lost the last two title games on the road. We knew all season that getting home field was the goals, and they have it.

Go Pack!

Aren't you a West High alum? I'm surprised that you were cheering for Glacier. I was pulling for West in a big way, just because Glacier is coached by former gris Grady Bennett. I couldn't stand that homer when he was one of the announcers/commentators for gris football games. I figured Glacier would probably win though. I was shocked that Billings Central lost to Frenchtown.

[PapaG]

West at Glacier for AA

Pack has lost the last two title games on the road. We knew all season that getting home field was the goals, and they have it.

Go Pack!

Aren't you a West High alum? I'm surprised that you were cheering for Glacier. I was pulling for West in a big way, just because Glacier is coached by former gris Grady Bennett. I couldn't stand that homer when he was one of the announcers/commentators for gris football games. I figured Glacier would probably win though. I was shocked that Billings Central lost to Frenchtown.

Family members have played for Glacier the last three years and now two of them will be playing for Tech next Fall.

Grady is actually a really good guy and is very welcoming to Bobcat coaches even though he played for the Gris. The oldest of “our” Glacier family boys had a late MSU offer for 2024 but stuck with Tech and is getting snaps for them this year as a sophomore. The senior on this year’s team had 4 INTs combined in the semifinals and last night. Balled out when it matter most and had a huge TFL on 3rd and goal in the 4th last night.