Missing football score altered Idaho 6A playoff bracket. Why can’t it be fixed?
A missing Capital vs. Boise football score set off a chain reaction that affected the 6A state football playoff bracket and its first-round matchups. But rules for Idaho’s high school sports governing body are clear: Late scores will not be accepted, leaving the existing matchups in place.
So Owyhee (5-4) will still travel to Rocky Mountain (8-1), and Highland (6-3) will still travel to Mountain View (6-3) — despite the current MaxPreps rankings showing Owyhee leapfrogging Highland in the latest calculations.
IHSAA Executive Director Chad Williams declined Monday to comment on specific schools. But he said the governing body set its deadline for scores at midnight Saturday evening years ago, adding the IHSAA reminded schools of the deadline at least three times this fall.
“We try to get it done sooner rather than later so schools can get their planning done and their busing (requests) in,” Williams said. “At some point we’ve got to have a deadline. We could wait until Thursday night, but we can’t because schools have to know where they are going. And if we wait until Thursday, will there still be scores missing? Probably.”
6A FOOTBALL PLAYOFF RANKINGS
The controversy boils down to Idaho’s use of MaxPreps rankings to seed its state playoffs. The 6A football playoffs rely on those rankings to award the final three at-large berths. Highland, Owyhee and Boise all clearly claimed those spots. But which order depended on the last data.
Neither Capital nor Boise entered their Friday night score, a 50-14 Capital victory. So the report MaxPreps provided to the IHSAA at midnight Saturday did not include that game and ranked Highland as the No. 10 seed ahead of No. 11 Owyhee.
Someone eventually entered that score, and MaxPreps updated its publicly available rankings. The win boosted Capital’s ranking, and it allowed Owyhee to vault past Highland as the Storm beat Capital earlier this year.
That change would have earned Owyhee the No. 10 seed and a first-round matchup against Mountain View instead of Rocky Mountain, the top-ranked team in the final MaxPreps rankings.
Owyhee appealed to the IHSAA board to use the new rankings. But the board rejected all ranking appeals Sunday, Williams confirmed.
“We just wanted to make sure that the rankings were valid,” Owyhee Athletic Director Dane Roy said. “We saw that Boise and Capital didn’t put their scores in. Once they put them in, it changed things, and we just assumed that was the new ranking.
“We just wanted to do what was right for the rankings and keep the integrity of it.”
FINES FOR BOISE, CAPITAL?
Missing scores have plagued the state playoff brackets ever since Idaho began using computer rankings for seeding in 2017. The IHSAA instituted a $1,500 fine this year for any team with missing scores, acknowledging that any incomplete data can affect everyone else in the state.
The IHSAA has not fined Capital or Boise yet. Williams said the IHSAA board would rule on any fines at its next meeting Dec. 9.
“There was some confusion on our coaches’ part,” Capital Athletic Director Jason Willer said. “Normally, they don’t put their stuff in until Monday morning. They come in and put all their stats and stuff in. We assigned it to another coach, and he dropped the ball.”
Boise Athletic Director Peter Horan did not immediately respond to a message from the Idaho Statesman.
MORE MAXPREPS RANKING ISSUES
Sunday also saw confusion in the 5A and 1A classifications as the publicly available rankings changed multiple times throughout the day.
Williams said Idaho’s official rankings are set and final at midnight Saturday. But MaxPreps re-ran its public rankings at noon, 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. Sunday as it fulfilled reports for other states.
That led to Emmett and Lewiston trading the No. 15 spot in the 5A rankings multiple times throughout Sunday, altering Bishop Kelly’s potential first-round opponent. And it saw Carey and Genesee trade the No. 3 and No. 5 spots in the latest 1A rankings.
MaxPreps ranks every team in the U.S. and cross-state matchups are common, making every ranking dependent on every score in the country. Any additional scores added to the system will ripple across the nation, moving teams up and down depending on when the rankings are calculated.
“It affects the ranking every single time,” Williams said. “It’s kind of like a live Google Doc. We had some schools that didn’t have all their data in, hence it affects the rankings.
“Truthfully, it doesn’t affect just one classification. There are 5A schools that played 6A schools and also played 4A schools.”
Boise and Capital provide a simple in-state example. Both played Borah, which beat Vallivue, a 5A squad. Vallivue played Twin Falls, which plays in a 5A league where several members play down against 4A opponents.
So that single missing Boise-Capital score affects the 6A, 5A and 4A rankings. Adding it late could alter the rankings and playoff matchups in all three classifications.
This story was originally published October 27, 2025 at 1:26 PM.
