THE FRONT ROW with Jason Elliott Nov. 2, 2013
Imagine what could happen if the Seattle Seahawks were to clinch the NFC West championship with a 13-3 record and the San Francisco 49ers - at 12-4 - were unable to compete in the playoffs and their bid went to a team with a lesser record due to the number of teams in a division?
Doesn't make much sense to me either.
WHETHER THEY like it or not, this has happened to the Lake City Timberwolves football team, which concluded the season with a 6-3 record after beating Lewiston on Thursday night.
Any other season, that record is usually good enough to get into the state playoffs, but not this time around.
The number of bids in the north decreased by one - leaving the Boise area (with 10 teams) with five bids, eastern Idaho (with five teams) with two and the north (four teams) with only one bid to the state playoffs.
Entering Friday night, Timberline High of Boise with a 4-4 record is the No. 5 seed from District 3.
Only the No. 3 team from District 3, which travels to Highland High of Pocatello and Timberline, assuming that's the team to visit Coeur d'Alene, will have to leave the Boise area.
For Lake City, which had a 16-year playoff run end this year, it just doesn't seem right.
Lake City lost in the season opener at Rocky Mountain High in Meridian, then won two straight before a loss at Eastside Catholic in Sammamish, Wash., before winning four of its last five games, the only loss coming to Coeur d'Alene.
MOST OF the teams in the Boise area have pretty good records, with a few at seven or eight wins heading into the final weekend of play.
But for as many good teams as they have, there's also some bad with more than a couple at only two wins.
So are they really good, or just middle of the pack?
Don't get me wrong, if they deserve the extra bid, then great, but that doesn't mean that another team should be punished for having just as good a season.
If the top half in two of the other three districts are getting half in, why not the north?
It's not performance-based, as last year's north qualifiers - Coeur d'Alene and Lake City - both advanced to the semifinals. Coeur d'Alene lost to Madison in its third straight trip to the title game.
WITH ALL the traveling that teams from the north do during the regular season, what's another week for a play-in game?
The playoffs should be comprised of the best of the best in that particular sport, shouldn't it?
Because if it wasn't, then the Denver Broncos might have been crowned Super Bowl champion, Alabama will be handed the national title if and when it beats LSU and those teams with the best records in baseball automatically advance to the World Series.
Next weekend, the best eight teams will take the field with the goal of winning a state title.
Meanwhile another, which might have been able to creep back into the title picture, gets ready for basketball season.
Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at JEPressSports.