With most eight man football teams having just one or two games left in the regular season, Colorado Preps can start to look ahead and project playoff brackets.  We take the current conference standings and RPI rankings to lay out the potential pairings.
To be honest, this is the most difficult bracket to project at this point.  Right now there are four teams from the Northwest in the bracket and three more from the Mountain.  So avoiding conference rematches and reducing travel for the Western teams is a tough task at this time.  But we’ll do our best.
In formatting, RPI and conference finish are the two most important factors in seeding the bracket.  A league champion in the RPI Top 10 will host a first round game, unless they’re paired with another champion which could come into play.  Right now, all six teams that lead their conference, some of which have already clinched a crown, are in the top 10 of RPI (Fowler, Elbert, Sanford, Vail Christian, Sedgwick County & Pikes Peak Christian).
Otherwise, the seeding system in place calls for all league champions to be placed on the board for consideration.  Then the top overall seed is selected from that group.  Once selected, the second team from the same conference as the number one seed is then added to the group and a second overall seed is chosen.  That process continues until all 16 teams are placed in the bracket.
Once the bracket is set, teams can be moved up or down for travel purposes and to avoid conference matchups in round one.
Getting to our final set of pairings takes several steps.  Let’s start with placing teams in the bracket based completely on RPI from October 24th.

  • #1 Vail Christian vs #16 Front Range Christian
  • #8 Pikes Peak Christian vs #9 Elbert
  • #4 Sedgwick County vs #13 Caliche
  • #5 Fowler vs #12 Rangely
  • #3 Sanford vs #14 Soroco
  • #6 Mancos vs #11 Sargent
  • #2 Dayspring Christian vs #15 Simla
  • #7 Merino vs #10 West Grand

As you can see, there are several issues.  Conference rematches between Sedgwick County-Caliche and Mancos-Sargent would probably be eliminated.  Plus Dayspring Christian cannot be seeded higher than Sedgwick County because the Eagles would not get on the seeding board before the Cougars were taken off.  It’s the same with Rangely and Soroco as the Rams need to be seeded higher due to a better conference finish.  There’s also a travel issue with Rangely-Fowler as the two schools are 420 miles apart.
So with those factors, let’s try a slightly different setup.  We move Sedgwick County ahead of Dayspring, Soroco ahead of Rangely and we also move up Pikes Peak Christian and Elbert ahead of Merino.  The Eagles and Bulldogs are conference champions while the Rams likely won’t finish higher than third in the Plains.  We hope the committee will reward league champions with a home game.  Another change has Caliche moving ahead of Rangely for travel purposes.

  • #1 Vail Christian vs #16 Front Range Christian
  • #8 Elbert vs #9 Merino
  • #4 Dayspring Christian vs #13 Soroco
  • #5 Fowler vs #12 Caliche
  • #3 Sedgwick County vs #14 Rangely
  • #6 Mancos vs #11 Sargent
  • #2 Sanford vs #15 Simla
  • #7 Pikes Peak Christian vs #10 West Grand

There is still the Mancos-Sargent issue and some travel distance between Rangely-Sedgwick County (457 miles).
So for our final bracket, we exchange Rangely & Simla in the bracket for travel purposes and then flip-flop West Grand and Sargent to clear the first round matchup between the Farmers and Mancos.  West Grand gets the short end on that move as it forces the Mustangs a much longer trip (351 miles).  As we mentioned, travel relief for teams out west is difficult this year since so many teams have qualified.

  • #1 Vail Christian vs #16 Front Range Christian
  • #8 Elbert vs #9 Merino
  • #4 Dayspring Christian vs #13 Soroco
  • #5 Fowler vs #12 Caliche
  • #3 Sedgwick County vs #14 Simla
  • #6 Mancos vs #11 West Grand
  • #2 Sanford vs #15 Rangely
  • #7 Pikes Peak Christian vs #10 Sargent

The good news for the committee is that the seeding scenario could change quite a bit with key games left on the schedule this week and next.  West Grand and Soroco collide this week to determine second and third in the Northwest.  If the Rams win, they would then be placed ahead of West Grand in the pairings.  The Mountain conference is also far from finished as Sanford has a one game lead on Dove Creek, Mancos and Sargent.  The Indians face Dove Creek this week and Sargent next week.  Dove Creek gets back in the playoff picture if they upset the Indians.
 
UPDATED NOTE:  The pairings we projected were based on RPI rankings through the morning of October 24th.  The ratings updated and somehow changed without games being played and the new standings have a different order but we will wait until games wrap up this weekend to produce a new set of projections.