THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Oct. 1, 2014

Another October is here, once again without the Seattle Mariners playing baseball.

But at least they made things interesting this past weekend.

SAY WHAT you want about this year, it was encouraging, or it was a disappointment, but for a while on Sunday, it seemed a lot like 1995 again.

On the good side, it doesn't hurt to have Felix Hernandez and Robinson Cano returning next year, and who knows, maybe they'll recruit a few of their All-Star friends to come to Seattle and really build on this thing.

For a few weeks at least, the team also saw a glimmer of hope in Dustin Ackley - the same guy that was supposed to be the second baseman of the future - although it wasn't until late in the season.

Already, the team has announced that all of its coaches will return next year, as will pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma after the team picked up his option for 2015.

And who knows, maybe they really are a player or two away.

But the chances to steal that spot were there, no question about it.

Had Seattle played a little better at Houston - where they lost two of three games - and at Toronto, where they lost three of four, they would have been heading to Kansas City for a wild-card game.

To the team's credit, neither general manager Jack Zduriencik or manager Lloyd McClendon are happy with missing out on the postseason this year.

And they should be.

It was theirs to take, and they didn't.

There's always next year, but they definitely swung and missed everything this year.

WITH THE cooler October temperatures, the race for the state football playoffs heat up with league play beginning within the next week or so, and business is about to pick up under the Friday night lights.

Both Coeur d'Alene and Lake City lost for the first time this season last Friday, and Post Falls beat Lakeland 41-21 in the Battle of the Prairie game.

The 5A playoffs have been expanded this season, and it's not out of the question to think that all three - Coeur d'Alene, Lake City and Post Falls - could be part of the 12-team field.

"There's definitely a lot of motivation to be successful this season, especially with our senior class," Post Falls senior linebacker Tom Roman said. "We've just been playing hard and having good practices. Right now, it's just day-in, day-out, we're in there working hard and grinding. The things we're doing in practice, they're amazing."

"Lakeland's a good, physical football team," Post Falls senior Jacob Koski said. "We were the unfavored team, so we had a bit of a chip on our shoulders."

Sometimes a little chip is all a team needs to go prove people wrong.

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.