For the second straight season, the ADM Football team has dug itself a hole it must climb out of to reach the playoffs.
With Friday’s 38-21 loss to Creston, ADM fell to 1-3 in district play, which is the same record they had at this point last season. The 2014 Tigers rallied to win their final three games, including over Harlan for the first time in program history in the final regular season game, which clinched a playoff spot.
Things are less straight forward this time around. The most likely scenario is that ADM would have to win out and get help to sneak in as the fourth playoff team from Class 3A District 8, in the final year of 32 playoff teams no less. Below is a look at some of the scenarios for ADM to get into the playoffs.
Scenario 1:
ADM wins its next two games, including this Friday against Glenwood, to enter the final regular season game with a 2-3 district record. Harlan loses its next two games, at Creston and at Glenwood, to also fall to 2-3 in district play entering the final week. In this case, ADM and Harlan would meet for a winner-take-all finale for the second straight season. But this time the game will be in Harlan, a place where the Tigers have never won.
Scenario 2:
Creston loses all three of its remaining district games while ADM beats Glenwood and Harlan, sneaking ahead of Creston for the fourth and final playoff spot. This assumes Harlan can lock down the No. 3 spot in the district, and that Winterset finishes no better than 2-4 in district play, as the Huskies hold the tiebreaker over ADM because they beat the Tigers in week five. This is a highly unlikely scenario, however, because it’s hard to imagine Creston losing to a bottom-feeding Atlantic team in the regular season finale.
There are other scenarios at play, but we’ll examine those after this week. The key is this: if ADM can’t upset the 6-0 Glenwood Rams at home this week, the Tigers will be all but eliminated from playoff contention.
District Standings:
1) Glenwood (3-0 District, 6-0 overall)
2) Dallas-Center Grimes (3-0 District, 5-1 overall)
3) Harlan (2-1 District, 5-1 overall)
4) Creston (2-1 District, 4-2 overall)
5) Winterset (1-3 District, 2-4 overall)*
6) ADM (1-3 District, 3-3 overall)
7) Atlantic (0-4 District, 1-5 overall)
*= Holds tiebreaker over ADM