Yodice: Let's dissect the playoff brackets

I’ve got the scalpel out, so let’s start the dissection of the 11-Man high school state football postseason brackets.

CLASS 6A: The top four seeds went as expected, with three members from District 3-6A — No. 1 Las Cruces, No. 3 Hobbs and No. 4 Centennial — receiving first-round byes. The defending state champion is Cleveland, the 2 seed.

The Bulldawgs are looking to bag their first state football championship in a dozen years, since that amazing 27-26 win over Mayfield in the 2013 final at Aggie Memorial Stadium.

The teams receiving first-round home games next weekend are all from the metro area, starting with No. 5 La Cueva, the District 2 champion. The Bears will open at Wilson Stadium against the last team into the field, No. 12 Eldorado.

Did Eldorado supplant Alamogordo as the final team after the Tigers lost a wild game at Clovis on Friday night? Fair question. Quite possibly.

Rio Rancho, Volcano Vista and Los Lunas also will be at home in the first round. The sixth-seeded Rams face No. 11 Carlsbad. The seventh-seeded Hawks — who jumped all the way to No. 3 in the final MaxPreps computer poll on Saturday night — also face a familiar district rival, this one being No. 10 Cibola. The Cougars and Volcano just met on Saturday to finish the regular season, with the Hawks winning 35-7.

Piedra Vista earned the No. 9 seed, and the Panthers will travel to Los Lunas. These two met in last year’s first round, as well, with the Tigers winning by a point.

The PV-LL winner gets Las Cruces in the quarterfinals. Cibola or Volcano are matched with Cleveland. The Rio Rancho-Carlsbad winner visits Hobbs. And either La Cueva or Eldorado will travel to Las Cruces to face Centennial.

It’s no big secret that the top two seeds in this bracket are, by a pretty wide margin, the two best teams in 6A. As I look at someone in this bracket who might have a puncher’s chance to hoist a blue trophy come Nov. 29, I frankly don’t see one. Centennial played Las Cruces to a 10-point game on Friday, so maybe it’s the Hawks. Hobbs is an X-factor. Could La Cueva mount a charge? The Bears’ extremely difficult road would have to go through both Centennial and almost certainly Las Cruces just to GET to the final.

Cleveland’s draw is … well … not altogether terrible. The Storm are gathering momentum, and Cruces and Centennial are on the other half of the draw.

CLASS 5A: What struck me immediately was the 3 seed assigned to the undefeated Los Alamos Hilltoppers, a reward for an excellent fall and a seed that surely was satisfying to head coach Garett Williams, who was deeply concerned about his team getting hosed in this bracket and stuck with a 5 seed — and with it a brutal road to a championship game.

Artesia and Roswell, who have met for the last two 5A crowns, are 1 and 2 in this bracket, then Los Alamos and Lovington.

Both Belen — the Eagles quietly have been one of 5A’s best stories with a bunch of really good football — and Highland will be home in the first round.

No. 7 Belen is home to No. 10 Valley. The Hornets, the 8 seed, face ninth-seeded Mayfield, which is 2-8. Remember, Goddard made the postseason last year as a 2-8 squad.

But this reinforces what we all already know: the southern district has those metaphorically deep pockets, and the currency of the brutality of their district pays off with seeds at state.

Of course, the Highland-Mayfield winner is saddled with a visit to Artesia in the quarterfinals, but hey what can you do?

Goddard lost its final two, but relatively competitive games against Artesia and Roswell shouldn’t dampen the Rockets’ spirits after what was a superb comeback season. If the Rockets, the 5 seed, beat No. 12 Deming, then Goddard gets a repeat match in the quarterfinals against Lovington.

Capital makes a rare appearance in the playoffs, on the 11 line. The Jaguars (who benefited greatly from a late-season forfeit in the District 1-5A standings by Miyamura) travel to No. 6 Gadsden next week in the first round.

Los Alamos was beaten in Anthony by Gadsden in last year’s quarters; the Hilltoppers would host Gadsden if they meet again in this year’s quarters. (And, no disrespect to Capital, but they will.)

Valley or Belen gets Roswell in the next round.

Everything runs through Bulldog Bowl in November. Artesia has turned away all the top challengers; Roswell coach Jeff Lynn said to me last month that this was the most talented Bulldogs team he had faced with the Coyotes.

I think the game I’d be most interested in, if it came to that, is Los Alamos-Roswell in a semifinal pairing. The Hilltoppers have talked the talk, that would allow them a chance to walk the walk.

CLASS 4A: Defending champion Bloomfield and St. Pius are 1-2, and if these two meet again in the finals, the rematch will occur in Albuquerque.

Chaparral, which was up and down over the final month, and Taos, which surged nicely in the second half of the season including impressive wins over Grants, Moriarty and Bernalillo, also earned byes. The Lobos last year were a 12 seed who won a first-rounder, so the Lobos are looking to build on that unexpected showing.

There figures to be much volatility in this division, given how many upsets (at least by the rankings) we witnessed during the regular season. Multiple times, unranked teams beat someone ranked in the top five. It was almost a weekly occurrence. This was, for me, the most entertaining class to watch this season.

Manzano at Bernalillo (in the 9-8 matchup) is an interesting first-rounder as the Spartans try to author another memorable postseason run after reaching the semis a year ago.

Albuquerque Academy was given a 5 seed, and will play host to No. 12 Valencia. That first-rounder will almost certainly have to be Friday afternoon, since Academy is hosting the state cross country meet on Saturday and the school has no lights.

Moriarty, and its stellar ground attack, comes in at No. 6, and the Pintos also are at home, taking on Portales.

Grants at Silver is the last of the four 4A first-rounders.

It would be fascinating if Moriarty and St. Pius ran into each other later this month, as they are in the same half of the draw. The Pintos were up 14-0 on the Sartans in the regular season in Moriarty, then weather came in, stopped the game, it wasn’t resumed, they couldn’t agree on when, or if, to resume the game, and it went down as a no contest.

St. Pius has tremendous momentum as it arrives at the postseason, and the overriding question in this entire bracket is: have the Sartans matured enough, and have they found the right formula, to supplant Bloomfield as 4A’s state champion? They have been superb the last several weeks; a more complete and efficient team than they were in the first half of the season.

CLASS 3A: St. Michael’s was the clear and obvious choice for the No. 1 seed. The Horsemen are 10-0 and they shredded their way through the 2025 schedule, winning their 10 games by an average of almost 40 points.

And this team tackled a demanding schedule.

District 2-3A, as usual, dominated the top seed lines. No. 1 St. Michael’s, No. 3 Hope Christian (which I thought received an extremely favorable draw), No. 4 Pojoaque Valley, No. 7 West Las Vegas and No. 8 Robertson. Speaking of the Elks, great to see that program earn a bye, which usually goes to rivals like West and Robertson who have the first weekend off from that district.

Robertson played St. Mike’s on Saturday; the Cardinals and Horsemen are seeded to meet again in the quarterfinals in two weeks.

Hope Christian’s 3 seed was a reward following a terrific regular season. Their bottom half of the draw is headlined by No. 2 Dexter, a close runner-up to St. Mike’s last November.

Ruidoso (the village and the football team) had an indescribably difficult 2024 season, but the Warriors rebounded with a solid 2025 showing and are seeded 10th. Ruidoso is at WLV in the first round for the second consecutive postseason.

Hope would face No. 11 Hot Springs or No. 6 Thoreau in the quarters.

Can St. Mike’s three-peat? That’s not even the right question. It should be, how can they NOT three-peat? Consider that not a single team that shared a field with the Horsemen this season played St. Michael’s closer than 26 points. Think about that.

CLASS 2A: Defending state champion Texico started 1-3, but won its last five and is the top seed here. Albuquerque’s Legacy Academy, coming off that defensive-minded victory over Santa Rosa the other night to claim a district title, was seeded second. Eunice and Hozho Academy round out the top four.

Texico’s 42-34 win over Eunice in Week 10 vaulted the Wolverines into the top line.

We could get a tasty Santa Rosa-Eunice matchup in the quarterfinals. The Lions, who were ranked No. 1 in Class 2A almost the entire regular season after beating Texico in the season opener, fell to No. 6 after back-to-back losses to Raton and Legacy Academy..

Legacy, which was beaten by Loving in the 2A quarters last season, could face the Falcons again in a couple of weeks. Loving, the 7 seed, opens next week with No. 10 Estancia.