Mountain Ridge Won It on the Field. The RPI Didn't Ask.

Mountain Ridge beat Skyridge 41-26 in August and went 10-0. On Saturday the UHSAA made Skyridge the No. 1 seed in 6A, and Mountain Ridge landed in the harder half of the bracket.

Nobody got robbed. The formula did exactly what it was built to do. The problem is what it was built to do.

First, Skyridge is legit

Let's get this out of the way, because it matters. Skyridge lost one game all year, in August, and then went out and beat Orem, Hun School of New Jersey, Liberty of Henderson, Corner Canyon, Lone Peak and American Fork.

Corner Canyon, Liberty of Henderson and Hun School is a set of wins any program in the country would be proud to own. Skyridge won Region 3, the deepest region in the state, too. It's 53rd on our Power 100, ahead of every other team in Utah but one.

Skyridge belongs at the top of this bracket. It just isn't clear it belongs above the team that beat it.

What the RPI can't see

Utah seeds its playoffs off an RPI. Your own record counts 45 percent, your opponents' records count 45, their opponents' count the last 10. That's it. Margin of victory counts for nothing, head-to-head counts for nothing, and neither does how good your opponents actually are. Only whether they won.

Skyridge finished at .807. Mountain Ridge finished at .784. The perfect record was worth about .050 to Mountain Ridge. Skyridge's opponents' records were worth about .071 the other way. That's the entire gap.

By the formula's math, Skyridge played the toughest schedule in 6A. Its opponents won 77 percent of their games. Lone Peak was second at 70 percent. That's where the formula starts to show its seams.

Lone Peak shows the blind spot

Lone Peak played IMG Academy and Bishop Gorman. IMG is No. 1 on the SPIN Power 100. Gorman is 10th. Lone Peak lost to IMG 59-3 and to Gorman 38-14, and you can argue those were two losses on the schedule before anybody kicked off.

The formula never sees IMG. It sees IMG's record, and a winning record from Bradenton counts the same as a winning record from anywhere else. A team can play the No. 1 team in the country and still come out with a softer RPI schedule than a team that didn't.

That isn't a knock on anybody's schedule. Skyridge played a good one, and Hun proved it Saturday by beating St. Frances Academy of Baltimore 14-9. It's a knock on a number that can't tell IMG from a winning region opponent. Those aren't the same game, and they aren't in the same stratosphere.

The head-to-head should count

So skip the formula and look at the field. Mountain Ridge and Skyridge only had one opponent in common besides each other, and it's Lehi. Corner Canyon shares four opponents with Mountain Ridge, so it goes in the table too.

It's a small sample. But the one piece of evidence nobody can argue with is the game itself. Mountain Ridge and Skyridge lined up in August, and Mountain Ridge won by 15.

That's the whole point of playing these games. We settle things on the field. When two teams finish a few hundredths apart and one of them already beat the other, the head-to-head should break the tie. Right now it doesn't count at all.

The Hun School question

Hun's upset of St. Frances didn't push Skyridge over the top, either. The brackets went public at 10 a.m. Saturday, and Hun didn't kick off until noon our time. Even if the UHSAA had waited, a Hun win would only have pushed Skyridge's number up. Skyridge was No. 1 either way.

Mountain Ridge's road runs through Corner Canyon

The Sentinels open at home against No. 15 Cedar Valley, a team they beat 59-0 on September 4. Then they get the winner of No. 7 Lone Peak and No. 10 Lehi. Lone Peak is 5-5 with that schedule, and it beat Skyridge in last year's semifinals on the way to the title game.

The quarter of the bracket next door holds No. 6 Westlake, which took Mountain Ridge to the final minutes of a 21-13 game last Thursday, and No. 3 Corner Canyon.

If the seeds hold, it's Mountain Ridge and Corner Canyon in the semifinals at Rice-Eccles, the same round and the same stadium where Corner Canyon beat the Sentinels 59-20 last November. I'd bet nobody in Herriman has forgotten that one.

Corner Canyon is the biggest threat to the top two

Mountain Ridge and Skyridge are the two best teams in this bracket. If anybody is going to crash their rematch, it's Corner Canyon. The three-time defending champion is 8-2, and its two losses were on the road, 38-24 at Liberty of Peoria, Arizona, and 37-27 at Skyridge.

Credit Skyridge for that second one. The Falcons picked off five passes and led 21-0 after one quarter. Corner Canyon still came back to make a game of it in the fourth, until Beckham Bennett broke a 48-yard touchdown run with 1:49 left. I wouldn't count on five interceptions happening twice.

Corner Canyon is the team with the athletes to run with Mountain Ridge. It has defensive backs who can cover the Sentinels' receivers, and almost nobody on Mountain Ridge's schedule could say that. That semifinal would be the hardest game left on anybody's board, and Corner Canyon is a legitimate threat to win the whole thing.

Skyridge's side

Skyridge opens against No. 16 Riverton. Its quarterfinal is the winner of No. 8 American Fork and No. 9 Copper Hills. American Fork had the ball and a shot at the lead against Skyridge last Wednesday until Ethan Schriever's fourth-down interception with 2:02 left sealed a 21-15 Falcons win. That's a defense that makes plays when it has to, and if it's the Cavemen again, Skyridge will be locked in.

Then there's Davis, the No. 5 seed. Don't sleep on the Darts. They've won four straight, and the offense has looked like a different unit since the quarterback situation settled in September.

The question is the defense. This is the group that gave up 51 to Corner Canyon and 42 to Mountain Ridge in August, and it'll have to be a lot better than that to hang with Skyridge. Davis opens against No. 12 Farmington, a team it beat just 14-3 on October 2.

No. 4 Herriman is the other big seed on that side. Skyridge earned the cleaner road, and it should be happy to have it. That's what a No. 1 seed is for.

5A: West is No. 1, and Orem is the problem

West of Salt Lake City is 10-0 and the No. 1 seed in 5A. Orem is 7-2 and No. 2. Orem had the toughest RPI schedule in the 5A field, and this time the perfect record won out anyway.

Look at Orem's two losses. It fell 21-14 at Skyridge, then 32-26 to Mater Dei of Santa Ana, a game the Tigers tied with 11:09 left before Mater Dei scored the winner with 3:58 to play. Most teams in America lose both of those games. I think Orem is the best team in 5A.

West has a case, and it's loud. The Panthers beat Archbishop Riordan of San Francisco 21-13 in August and have won every game since by at least 43 points. They're in opposite halves, so the 5A final is probably West against Orem, and we've seen this movie. Last November, Orem beat top-seeded West 34-7 in the semifinals, then rolled Springville 42-7 for the title.

4A: Ridgeline until somebody says otherwise

Ridgeline is 10-0, the defending 4A champion and the No. 1 seed. The Riverhawks have won 24 straight, and the closest anybody came this fall was No. 3 Stansbury, 42-39 on October 1. They open against No. 16 Mountain View of Orem, with No. 2 Hurricane, 9-1, in the other half.

The pick

Two very good teams, one game between them, and Mountain Ridge won it. That should have counted for something on Saturday.

None of that changes what happens next, and I don't think the Sentinels want it to. This team walked off the field after a 21-13 win last Thursday looking like it had lost, and the harder half gives it real games before the big ones. Skyridge will be just as hungry to settle it.

Get through Corner Canyon, and if the seeds hold, the rematch is Friday, November 20, 2:30 p.m., at Rice-Eccles. I'm taking the Sentinels.

A formula picked the No. 1 seed. On November 20, the field gets the final word, which is where it belonged in the first place.