Alaska high school football playoffs will happen, even if brackets are filled in ‘weird way’

Welcome to the football playoffs, Eagle River.

You too, Palmer, Redington and Houston. And East, Bartlett and Chugiak. Welcome to you too, Juneau, even though you haven’t played a game yet and there’s a Plan B in case you aren’t able to accept a playoff berth.

Alaska’s high school football playoffs are a go, and even though there are two weeks left in the regular season, COVID-19 has taken much of the guessing out of the usual late-season playoff puzzle.

Bottom line: State champions will be crowned at the Division I, Division II and Division III levels, pandemic permitting. Of the 25 high schools that are fielding teams this season, 18 of them will advance to the playoffs — and we already know who’s getting several of the berths.

Playoff berths are usually decided by conference standings. But because a number of schools aren’t able to play conference games because of COVID-19-related travel restrictions this season, the Alaska School Activities Association needed a new way to build playoff brackets.

“There’s no way to let the typical conference results (decide) the playoffs,” ASAA executive director Billy Strickland said last week after the group’s board of directors adopted a playoff format.

Instead, he said, “we’ve come up with methods for determining playoffs based on the ability to travel (during the regular season).”

That means automatic berths for a number of teams.

Take Eagle River, the only Division II school in the Anchorage School District. Because ASD will only allow Anchorage schools to play other Anchorage schools during the regular season, Eagle River isn’t playing any conference games. The Wolves are only playing nonconference games against Division I Anchorage teams.

A similar scenario is happening in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District. Schools there aren’t allowed to play schools outside Mat-Su, so three teams — Division II Palmer and Division III Redington and Houston, which belong to different conferences — aren’t playing any conference games.

In Juneau, the Huskies are the only Division I team in Southeast Alaska and their school district won’t let them travel either. The only games they’ve had so far are intrasquad scrimmages.

ASAA decided that each of those schools will get automatic playoff berths — otherwise they’d have no path into the playoffs.

“Obviously how we’re qualifying teams is totally bizarre,” Strickland said. “But I think we are advancing the teams that would have advanced in a typical season. We got there in a weird way, but we’re going to have playoffs.”

ASAA decided that in Division II, berths in the Oct. 9-10 semifinals will be awarded by school district. Eagle River and Palmer get automatic berths as the only Division II schools in ASD and the Mat-Su district, respectively. Multiple teams will vie for the single spots available in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District (home to Soldotna and Kenai) and the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District (Lathrop, West Valley, North Pole).

In Division III, six teams will qualify for the playoffs. Because neither Houston nor Redington can play conference opponents, both will get a spot in the Oct. 9-10 quarterfinal round. Houston plays in the Peninsula Conference with Homer, Nikiski and Seward, and Redington plays in the Aurora Conference with Eielson, Monroe and Valdez (not all schools are playing this season).

The top team in each conference gets a first-round bye and will meet the quarterfinal winners in the Oct. 16-17 semifinals. The championship game is Oct. 24.

In Division I, nine teams are playing within their districts — seven in Anchorage and two in the Valley — and Juneau is playing intrasquad scrimmages.

The playoff bracket has six spots for Anchorage teams, one for a Valley team and one for Juneau.

Strickland said if Juneau accepts a playoff berth, it will play at a time that allows the Huskies to travel to and from Anchorage on the same day. If Juneau doesn’t accept a playoff berth, its spot will go to the other Valley team.

For the purpose of playoff pairings, ASAA split Anchorage’s seven Cook Inlet Conference teams into two divisions — Cook Inlet North (Bartlett, Chugiak, East) and Cook Inlet South (Dimond, Service, South, West).

Each division gets three playoff berths, meaning all three CIC North teams are in the Oct. 9-10 quarterfinals. All but one of the CIC South teams will qualify.

Eagle River coach Brad Myers on Tuesday said it’s great news there will be football playoffs. “It’s well-deserved for the kids," he said.

But even though his team is penciled into the semifinals, he’s knows nothing is certain in a time when rising rates of COVID-19 could put an end to competition.

“We’re blessed with every day we get to play,” he said. “We could get shut down at any time.”

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