Who gets the 3A SSC’s four football playoff seeds? It’s complicated
Confusion is king in the Class 3A South Sound Conference right now, where league coaches and athletic directors are working to determine who will receive the league’s four high school football playoff spots.
The league determined before the season that any covid-related cancellations would not count as forfeits. They’re instead ruled as no-contests.
Central Kitsap missed two league games because of covid protocol. Peninsula, which is undefeated in league play, also had a covid-related shutdown, missing one league game.
Currently, the league standings look like this:
Yelm 5-0
Peninsula 4-0
Central Kitsap 3-1
Gig Harbor 3-3
Timberline 3-3
River Ridge 2-3
Capital 1-5
North Thurston 0-6
For the playoffs, Yelm and Peninsula are in. Capital and North Thurston are out. The confusion comes in the middle; Central Kitsap, Timberline and Gig Harbor all beat each other during the regular season.
Central Kitsap beat Gig Harbor 20-14 and lost to Timberline 31-28. Gig Harbor beat Timberline 31-26. Central Kitsap will be an underdog against Yelm on Friday night, but even with a loss, the Cougars will finish with a higher winning percentage than Gig Harbor and Timberline.
In a normal year, that would earn them a playoff berth. But it’s problematic rewarding a team that played two fewer league games than either Timberline or Gig Harbor, especially considering it didn’t play Peninsula.
“We have language that allows us to go to a card draw or vote,” said Peninsula football coach and athletic director Ross Filkins, who also serves as the league’s football commissioner. “(But) as coaches and athletic directors, we want the players to determine on the field who advances.”
If Central Kitsap pulls the upset and beats Yelm and Gig Harbor beats River Ridge, the four playoff teams will be Yelm, Peninsula, Gig Harbor and Central Kitsap.
But the more likely scenario is a Central Kitsap loss and even though CK would still have a higher winning percentage than Gig Harbor and Timberline, Filkins said the league has determined it would be considered a three-way tie. In that scenario, the league plans to hold a mini-playoff next Tuesday, similar to a Kansas City tiebreaker.
Teams would be guaranteed at least two possessions from the opponent’s 25-yard line. Defenses would be allowed to score. The time and location of the potential tiebreaker have not yet been determined.
There’s one other scenario to consider: What happens if River Ridge beats Gig Harbor? Timberline will almost certainly beat North Thurston, but Gig Harbor’s game against River Ridge is far from a lock. If that happens, it creates an even bigger headache for the league. Then, the 3A SSC would have two teams with three losses each and a Central Kitsap team that’s only played five league games.
If that scenario plays out, the league will need to figure out the best way to proceed. The league’s athletic directors are planning to meet Saturday morning, following Friday night’s games.
Stay tuned. It’s been a weird year, and things could get weirder yet.
This story was originally published October 27, 2021 at 1:58 PM.
