At midnight Friday, in a cold parking lot outside a catfish restaurant off I-40, three high school football coaches lined up with coins in their hands. Gore, Liberty and Sallisaw Central had each finished 6-4, and every tiebreaker had run dry. Two of them were going to the playoffs, and one was going home. Their seasons came down to a flip outside Seminole, Oklahoma.
The three teams tied for third in District A-II-3, and only four per district advance. To resolve deadlocks of this nature, the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA) relies on a strict final-option protocol. All three coaches flip simultaneously; whichever two land on matching sides secure the postseason spots, leaving the odd coin out. The odd one is out of the conversation. So the coaches drove to Catfish Round Up at Exit 200 after their Friday games to meet OSSAA associate director Trinity Johnson.
“I’m leaving on the ground,” Johnson said, according to the video posted by the Brandon Walker College Football show on X, which showed three coaches flipping for the win. “The odd man out will be the one that’s out. In the event that all three land on heads or all three land on tails, we will continue to flip until one doesn’t match the other two.”
“We’ve got a heads from Gore, a tail from Liberty, and a tail from Central Sallisaw, so Gore will be eliminated from the playoffs. Liberty will advance, and Central Sallisaw will advance. You hate for one of you guys’ seasons to end on a coin flip, but congratulations.”
Gore’s Nathan McCurley, Sallisaw Central’s Jeremy Thompson and Liberty’s Nate Green each had a custom coin in his school’s colors. The OSSAA broadcast the midnight toss live via Facebook. It took one toss. Gore’s heads didn’t match two tails, and a 49-0 win over Mounds earlier that night didn’t matter.
The plan was public before a single game was played. Tulsa TV anchor T.J. Eckert shared the OSSAA’s email on November 5, and his reply, “Hell yes. Let’s all meet at the Catfish Round Up,” is why a district tiebreaker turned into a statewide story.
The stakes were simple. By virtue of its regular-season victory over Liberty, Central claims the No. 3 seed and a first-round matchup at Woodland. Liberty, the No. 4 seed, faces Ketchum. Talihina, the defending A-II champion, finished 10-0 and took the top seed, with Regent Prep at No. 2. Gore has to start the offseason after a 6-4 year, with a blowout win as its last memory.
“For just the fourth time in three decades, a coin flip was needed to settle an OSSAA football playoff tiebreaker,” Jeff Patterson of The Oklahoman reported. “The three schools finished in a three-way tie for third place in District A-II-3.”
In 1988, Midland Lee, Midland High and Odessa Permian met at a truck stop, and Midland High was left out. This iconic drama inspired a famous sequence in Friday Night Lights, though the film adaptation substituted Abilene Cooper for Midland. Texas high schools Amarillo, Lubbock, and Amarillo Caprock gathered at a Plainview convenience store for a similar tiebreaking flip. Amarillo had forfeited six wins that same day because of an ineligible player. Amarillo won the flip and took the No. 4 seed.
What comes next for the three programs?
Gore, Liberty and Central got here in an odd way. Liberty held sole possession of third place heading into Friday night, but a lopsided 63-8 defeat to top-seeded Talihina threw the standings into chaos. Central beat Porter 52-14. That created a three-way tie.
Direct matchups produced a complete stalemate, as Gore defeated Central, Liberty topped Gore, and Central edged Liberty. The point differential, capped at 15 per game, finished even at 15 apiece.
For Central and Liberty, the work starts with Woodland and Ketchum. Both teams advanced on a coin, not by outscoring anyone.
Central and Liberty get another week, while Gore is left back after the flip. The rule hasn’t changed, and in a district this tight, it may be needed again.