I’d like to be among the first to congratulate the following high schools: Mankato Loyola, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle, Albany, Maple Grove, and Chanhassen. I’d like to really congratulate the following: Sauk Centre, Annandale, and Cloquet.

The first list is the list of all of the #6 seeds that won in the first round of the high school football playoffs on Tuesday night. The second list is all of the #7 seeds that pulled off an upset.

By my count, there were 172 games in the first round of the section playoffs on Tuesday night. 151 of these were won by the higher-seeded team. Let’s break this down by seed:

#1 seeds: 32-0
#2 seeds: 41-3
#3 seeds: 43-5
#4 seeds: 35-13

31 of the 48 sections will match up #1 vs. #4 and #2 vs. #3 in the second round. Only three sections – 2A, 6AA, and 6AAA  – had more than one upset. Class 4A didn’t have a single upset in the entire first round.

At some point, I feel like we need to ask ourselves – do we really need to have eight teams make the playoffs in every section? Seems like we could get rid of the first round and its weird Tuesday game without losing too much from the prep football experience, with the obvious apologies to the schools listed above. And it might save a few teams from a Tuesday beating – like my school, Ortonville, which got beat 79-14 by Dawson-Boyd last night.

Here’s the list of all 21 upsets in the state:

6-9MAN: #5 Hillcrest Lutheran 20, #4 Norman County East 14
7-9MAN: #5 Mountain Iron-Buhl 31, #4 Ely 12
2A: #5 Minnesota Valley Lutheran 20, #4 Sleepy Eye 16
2A: #6 Mankato Loyola 28, #3 Lake Crystal-Wellcome 13
3A: #5 Springfield 21, #4 Martin County Werst 20
4A: #5 BBE 26, #4 Royalton 13
8A: #5 Northern Freeze 48, #4 Red Lake 20
5AA: #5 Benson 30, #4 Morris 14
6AA: #5 Holdingford 28, #4 Upsala/Swanville 0
6AA: #6 LP-GE 15, #3 Breckenridge 14
6AA: #7 Sauk Centre 56, #2 Osakis 29
1AAA: #5 Stewartville 10, #4 Byron 7
5AAA: #5 Rockford 35, #4 Blake 13
6AAA: #6 Albany 26, #3 St. Cloud Cathedral 18
6AAA: #7 Annandale 21, #2 New London-Spicer 20
7AAA: #7 Cloquet 21, #2 Pine City 14
8AAA: #5 Park Rapids 13, #4 EGF 10
1AAAAA: #5 Lakeville South 35, #4 Rochester Mayo 7
4AAAAA: #5 East Ridge 33, #4 Hastings 14
5AAAAA: #6 Maple Grove 36, #3 St. Michael-Albertville 0
6AAAAA: #6 Chanhassen 27, #3 Shakopee 26