Official playoff brackets will be announced today for eight man, 1A, 2A and 5A football. We’ve spent the last few weeks and intensely the last couple of days using available date to project how we feel the bracket will layout. With new numbers posted this morning, we thought we’d take one more shot at predicting the pairings.
EIGHT MAN
#1 Sedgwick County vs #16 Elbert
#8 Pikes Peak Christian vs #9 Merino
#4 Vail Christian vs #13 Dove Creek
#5 Mancos vs #12 Rangely
#3 Dayspring Christian vs #14 Holly
#6 Fowler vs #11 Sargent
#2 Sanford vs #15 Simla
#7 West Grand vs #10 Caliche
NOTES: Most of this is based on final RPI standings issued on Sunday. We have a feeling the committee will move Vail Christian and Fowler higher up in the rankings due to winning conference championships but as we stated yesterday, this bracket does have nice balance to it as top teams from conferences are split between the upper and top half. The exception is the Ark Valley where Fowler and Holly are on the lower side. We moved Holly from the 13th spot in RPI to help avoid a conference pairing between Sanford & Dove Creek.
CLASS 1A
#1 Strasburg vs #16 Manual
#8 Highland vs #9 Hotchkiss
#4 Meeker vs #13 Flatirons Academy
#5 Centauri vs #12 Buena Vista
#3 Limon vs #14 Rocky Ford
#6 Florence vs #11 Wray
#2 Holyoke vs #15 Rye
#7 Colorado Springs Christian vs #10 Yuma
NOTES: This is a very good bracket and to be honest, we’ll be a bit surprised if this isn’t the final set of pairings. It stair steps well with head-to-head results and conference finishes. There could be discussion between Strasburg and Holyoke in the top two spots and we could exchange Manual and Rye in the final two spots to help with travel, but otherwise this is a very good bracket.
CLASS 2A
#1 Rifle vs #16 Pagosa Springs
#8 Classical Academy vs #9 Basalt
#4 Delta vs #13 La Junta
#5 Platte Valley vs #12 Elizabeth
#3 Resurrection Christian vs #14 Moffat County
#6 Faith Christian vs #11 Bennett
#2 Sterling vs #15 Englewood
#7 Lamar vs #10 Eaton
NOTES: We’ve had Sterling #1 in many of our early brackets but with data from other polls becoming available this morning, we think the committee will move Rifle to the top spot and Sterling to number two. Doesn’t matter a whole bunch since the state finals are played at a neutral site (CSU-Pueblo). The key move involves Platte Valley. The Broncos are very high in the composite rankings so we move them into the fifth spot but that may be a bit high. There is travel concerns with the 8-9 game between Basalt and TCA and La Junta vs Delta but in the past, 2A hasn’t been that concerned with sending teams on a long first round trip.
