Fans of the Jerome, Minico, Burley, Kimberly or Wendell football programs, cover your eyes. You may not like where this is headed.

A couple of years ago I asked a SCIC football coach why District IV declined the opportunity to share a pre-bracketed rotating fourth seed with District VI in the Class 3A ranks. His reply: It's pointless to send the fourth-place team to get killed by Shelley every other year.

Instead, a 1-7 Teton team came to undefeated Kimberly in 2007. As expected, it wasn't much of a contest. Teton had no business being in the playoffs that year. The same could be said in any year for any number of teams that qualify. In fact, District IV could be one of this year's biggest offenders.

I somewhat understand Jerome's and Kimberly's advancement. They both finished second in their conference and had winning records. While pre-bracketing to guarantee playoff spots to non-district champions is ridiculous, in my opinion, there is something to be said for finishing second.

As to the other three mentioned above, I ask this: By what logic does a sub-.500 team that can't win its league deserve a shot at a title?

Why does Burley get another crack at Twin Falls, a 45-0 winner when they played three weeks ago? What benefit comes with Wendell, winner over three teams with a combined eight wins, playing perennial power Fruitland, even if the Grizzlies are down this year by their lofty standards?

What does 4-5 Minico - which beat teams with a combined 12 wins, handed Canyon Ridge its maiden victory and also lost to 2-6 Preston - gain by visiting defending 4A champ Hillcrest, a team which has its only loss looking increasingly like a fluke with every passing week?

The long and the short of the issue is this: This whole pre-bracketing business is nonsense. I get that it saves on travel by pairing teams from neighboring districts, but it rarely represents a true state championship where the best teams advance the farthest.

Take the 2007 playoffs, for instance. Class 4A specifically. Blackfoot, Minico and Pocatello were widely considered the three best teams in the state. A pre-contrived bracket dictated only one of those teams could compete on the big stage for the championship trophy.

When the final rolled around, Blackfoot destroying Nampa in the title game was almost a foregone conclusion. The Blackfoot-Minico quarterfinal and Blackfoot-Pocatello semifinal games would both have been better, more competitive, championship games.

It might not have drawn interest from the Treasure Valley like Nampa did, but isn't the point of a championship to have the best two teams fighting for the prize at the end?

This year's 4A bracket has Blackfoot and Hillcrest, arguably the two top teams, on opposite sides. But the 3A bracket has the three unbeatens - Shelley, Buhl and Marsh Valley - in the same half, a trend that shows up in at least one bracket almost every year.

The solution? It's time to seed the 11-man state tournaments, and limit them to eight contestants per classification. The fact that at least half of all 4A, 3A and 2A schools make the playoffs is ludicrous.

Base the playoff entrants on district champions and those schools which fared well against a difficult schedule. Such a model exists in Arizona, where teams earn a certain number of power points for every victory, plus a fraction of a point for every win of every opponent they face - a strength of schedule component, if you will. Teams must earn a playoff berth by playing, and beating, good teams.

I devised a mythical eight-team playoff for all four 11-man classes loosely based on that model. The points and matchups, posted in full on the Magic Valley Overtime blog, were interesting to say the least. From District IV, only Glenns Ferry made the cut as an at-large.

I'll freely admit I'm not the first one to address the issue. Seeding proposals have been made before, according to Twin Falls athletic director Mike Federico. Tweaked cross-district brackets have been pitched to create more intrigue, according to the Post Register.

No suggestion, however, has survived the Idaho High School Activities Association. Around the state there's a strong attachment to the norm, even if a few schools want change.

For now, we're stuck with what we have - classifications so thin and brackets so deep that in a normal year five of 21 Class 2A teams don't qualify.

When, oh when, did this become Little League Lite?

David Bashore may be reached at dbashore@magicvalley.com or 208-735-3230.