Interesting scenario could play out with Yutan. The NSAA Wild Card Qualifying Criteria stipulates that you have to PLAY 8 games to be eligible for a wildcard into the playoffs. Yutan will PLAY their 7th on Friday against Lincoln Lutheran. That would make them ineligible for a wildcard. If they win they would be district champions, and if they lose they would likely be out of wild card contention anyway, but an interesting hypothetical nonetheless. I'm not sure where "district champion" fits in with this rule because they are not a wild card qualifier at that point. See page 32 of the following link. It is actually page 31 of the NSAA Football handbook, but page 32 of the PDF document, point 2 on the bottom of the page. An exception is listed for schools that are not provided a full schedule of games, but that is not the case with Yutan (It would be for schools that only had 8 games on their original schedule like Aquinas or North Bend Central). Yutan had 9 games but received 2 forfeits and chose not to replace Omaha Brownell-Talbot prior to the start of the year. Nearly every other school that OBT played did replace them.
Not sure you can penalize Yutan for teams forfeiting, especially HTRS, but that IS what the rule says. The keyword is PLAY. They didn't play either of those forfeited games. If I were associated with Yutan football I would be calling the NSAA immediately to get this sorted out before Friday. Anyone have any insight as to how this would play out? For the kids at Yutan, I hope the NSAA applies common sense and makes an additional exception to allow them to participate in the playoffs if they win. I don't think many would argue that Yutan is a playoff caliber team, despite their 3 losses.
Not sure you can penalize Yutan for teams forfeiting, especially HTRS, but that IS what the rule says. The keyword is PLAY. They didn't play either of those forfeited games. If I were associated with Yutan football I would be calling the NSAA immediately to get this sorted out before Friday. Anyone have any insight as to how this would play out? For the kids at Yutan, I hope the NSAA applies common sense and makes an additional exception to allow them to participate in the playoffs if they win. I don't think many would argue that Yutan is a playoff caliber team, despite their 3 losses.