Prognosticate at own risk in 5A football

A sports writer in the Boise area – we’ll be vague for the purpose of not identifying the scribe – had written a column about how it appeared no 5A football team in the Southern Idaho Conference would touch Meridian this season when the inexplicable happened.

In case you missed it, Eagle upset Meridian 28-21 last Thursday, knocking the previously unbeaten Warriors off the 5A mountain top. The same Meridian team (5-1) that traveled 8 hours one way in mid-September to beat Lake City 41-14. The same Eagle team (3-3) that Lake City (5-1) traveled 8 hours one way to beat 35-27 a week later.

Fortunately for the sports writer, the column hadn’t been published prior to Eagle’s win and it was rewritten. That spared the writer some embarrassment to be sure.

I even wrote here a couple of weeks ago that the Lake City-Coeur d’Alene winner in the first round of the state playoffs would meet up with Meridian in the semifinals. Now it appears the 5A world is topsy-turvy for a second straight year.

Hey, even defending state champ Twin Falls (4-2), led by last year’s speedy running back and 5A player of the year Brody Miller, has been brought back to reality after two straight losses. Two weeks ago, then undefeated Twin Falls traveled to Centennial (5-1), where the Patriots tripped the Bruins 29-21. Last week, Idaho Falls, which has been so far removed from playoff success in 5A the past decade that we were wondering if they still played football in that town, rallied to upset Twin Falls 33-32.

Certainly Highland (4-2), the powerhouse for more than a decade until two years ago, has been mortal this year.

So what’s happening? For one, there’s a lot of parity.

It’s still my opinion that Coeur d’Alene (5-1) should have captured the state title last year. The championship trophy was in the Vikings’ hands before it was fumbled away.

So the question is – is there a No. 1 team in 5A now? My answer is no.

Highland began the year ranked No. 1 out of respect for its program. Six state titles in the last 12 years certainly mean something. But Coeur d’Alene soon replaced the Rams at the top and Meridian bumped the Vikings out of the way after Borah, 0-3 at the time and making one of those 8-hour one-way road trips, shocked the Vikings 53-35.

So which team will be voted No. 1 this week?

As I said in an e-mail reply to the Boise-area sports writer, we don’t have a true No. 1 now. What we have is a bunch of No. 2s. Heap Meridian, Twin Falls, Highland, Coeur d’Alene, Lake City and Centennial all together. As a matter of fact, just for fun, I considered voting a five-way tie for first this week. Instead, I ranked Centennial, Coeur d’Alene, Meridian, Lake City and Highland, in that order.

Where does that put Eagle (3-3), Idaho Falls (4-2), Mountain View (4-2), and even Lewiston (4-2), which is much in the hunt for one of the two playoff berths the Inland Empire League receives? On the outside, looking in.

The state champion will come from the elite five. The state final pairing will come from the elite five. (And my conviction is stronger now than a couple of weeks ago that the LC-CdA winner can advance to the state title game.)

That is, of course, if everything follows form the rest of the way. Which reminds me of a friend’s favorite saying. Cliché or not, it’s true. On any given Friday – or Thursday – anything can happen. Especially when it comes to high school sports.

Just ask Craig Craker at the Press-Tribune in Nampa.