5A, 4A football state playoffs start next week. Who’s in, who’s out and who needs help.

With the high school football playoffs a week away, it’s crunch time in the 5A and 4A Southern Idaho Conference.

Fourteen of the 20 teams in those two leagues remain in the playoff hunt. And a dizzying array of possibilities remain regarding who will live to play another week, who will be seeded where, and who can win league or pod titles.

I huddled with IdahoSports.com’s Matt Harris to break down all the scenarios for every 5A and 4A team. See his story for the full details on both leagues’ tiebreakers. Check out the SIC-centric scoreboard-watching guide below.

5A SIC POD A

Playoff berths: Three

Clinched berths: Capital, Mountain View

Champion: TBD

Still alive: Columbia, Meridian

Eliminated: Nampa, Boise

Scenarios: This is the simple one.

Mountain View (8-0, 4-0) battles Capital (6-1, 4-0) for the pod championship for the second year in a row. The winner earns the pod’s top seed at state and a first-round bye. The loser finishes second and hosts a first-round playoff game next week against the at-large team. (More on that later.)

The pod’s third and final guaranteed playoff berth gets decided when Meridian (3-5, 2-2) hosts Columbia (4-4, 2-2). The winner travels to Madison next week. The loser is eliminated as it can’t mathematically claim the at-large berth.

5A SIC POD B

Playoff berths: Three

Clinched berths: Borah, Eagle, Rocky Mountain

Champion: TBD

Still alive: Timberline

Eliminated: Centennial, Kuna

Scenarios: Borah, Eagle and Rocky Mountain have earned their playoff spots. The last week will just determine their seeding.

Borah (6-2, 4-0) can win its first pod or league title since 2012 with a win at Eagle (6-2, 3-1). That would allow the Grizzlies (6-2, 3-1) to finish second regardless of their result against Centennial and drop the Mustangs to third.

Eagle still can win the pod outright with a victory over Borah and a Rocky Mountain loss. But if Eagle and Rocky Mountain both win, all three teams finish 4-1 with no way to break the head-to-head ties. A three-way coin flip would determine the final playoff seeding.

The first-place finisher gets a first-round bye. The second-place team hosts either Hillcrest or Rigby in the first round. The third-place finisher travels in the first round to the loser of Friday’s game between Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls.

5A AT-LARGE BERTH

The 12th and final spot in the 5A playoffs is available to teams one spot out of an automatic playoff berth in the SIC, North Idaho and East Idaho.

The team with the best record against 5A teams gets the at-large berth. That record includes out-of-state teams with enrollments large enough to play in Idaho’s 5A classification.

Timberline (4-5) beat Kuna (3-6) on Thursday night, 31-20, to improve to 2-3 in its pod. The victory made the Wolves the only SIC team that is mathematically alive for the at-large berth and eliminated the Kavemen.

North Idaho’s at-large teams are already eliminated as well. So Timberline will earn the at-large berth if any of the following three scenarios happens in East Idaho.

▪  Favored Rigby beats Bonneville, and favored Highland tops Hillcrest.

▪  Bonneville upsets Rigby by 10 or more points.

▪  If Bonneville upsets Rigby by nine points or fewer, Hillcrest also must upset Highland.

4A SIC

Playoff berths: Four

Clinched berths: Skyview, Middleton, Bishop Kelly

Champion: TBD

Still alive: Emmett, Ridgevue

Eliminated: Vallivue, Caldwell, Mountain Home

No. 1-ranked and undefeated Skyview (8-0, 6-0) controls its own destiny. As long as it doesn’t lose to No. 2-ranked Bishop Kelly (7-1, 5-1) by 14 or more points, it clinches its first league title since 2011 and a first-round bye.

In fact, if all the favorites win Friday night — Skyview beats Bishop Kelly, Middleton beats Mountain Home and Emmett beats Ridgevue — no one needs to break out a calculator as Skyview finishes first, Middleton second, Bishop Kelly third and Emmett fourth.

Even with upsets, the path forward is relatively straight.

Middleton (5-3, 5-1) finishes second as long as it beats winless Mountain Home.

Bishop Kelly can steal the league title by beating Skyview by 14 or more points through a series of tiebreakers. Otherwise, it finishes third (assuming Middleton avoids an upset).

For Emmett (5-3, 3-3) and Ridgevue (3-5, 2-4), neither can finish any better than fourth place. Emmett is in with a win and still can make the playoffs with a loss. Ridgevue needs to beat Emmett and have Caldwell upset Vallivue to leapfrog the Huskies and finish fourth.

This story was originally published October 18, 2017 at 11:24 PM with the headline "5A, 4A football state playoffs start next week. Who’s in, who’s out and who needs help.."