A three-way tie for third place in District A-II-3 pushed three Oklahoma high school football coaches into a catfish restaurant parking lot at midnight, where a coin toss - not a scoreboard - decided whose season would continue. Gore's coin came up heads. Liberty's and Central Sallisaw's both came up tails. That was enough to send Gore home and punch tickets for the other two.
Three Teams, Two Spots, One Coin
Gore, Liberty and Sallisaw Central finished the regular season tied for third place in District A-II-3, with only two playoff berths up for grabs, according to The Oklahoman. With every other tiebreaker exhausted, the three coaches - Nathan McCurley of Gore, Nate Green of Liberty and Jeremy Thompson of Central Sallisaw - met in the parking lot of the Catfish Round Up in Seminole, as News 9 reported.
Overseeing the coin toss was Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association Assistant Director Trinity Johnson, who met with the head coaches from each school at midnight, according to USA Today. Johnson supplied specialty coins bearing each school's colors, and the two coins that landed on the same side would determine which teams advanced, per the same account. When the coins were flipped, Gore's landed on heads while Liberty's and Central's both landed tails - eliminating Gore from the postseason.
How the Tie Got This Close
Central Sallisaw ultimately placed ahead of Liberty in the standings because of its head-to-head win, having beaten Liberty 48-28 on Oct. 9, the station notes. That result settled the order between Liberty and Central, but it did nothing to resolve the larger three-way logjam that also included Gore, leaving the coin toss as the only option left on the board.
Accounts of the teams' season-long records differ. The seed reporting attributed to The New York Times states that all three schools finished the regular season with 6-1 overall records and 4-3 district records, while USA Today reports that each team finished with a 6-4 overall record and a 4-3 record in district play. That discrepancy has not been resolved.
A Rare Scene for Oklahoma Football
Gore closed out its season with a 49-0 win over Mounds on Nov. 6, a lopsided victory that ended up not mattering once the tiebreakers ran out. The Oklahoman notes that this marked just the fourth time in three decades that an OSSAA football playoff tiebreaker required a coin flip to settle a district's postseason picture, underscoring how unusual the early-Saturday parking-lot scene really was.
Liberty and Central Sallisaw are both slated to open the playoffs on the road next week, News 9 reported, while Gore's season is now over. Reaction to the outcome spread on social media, with the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association posting on X that the midnight coin toss would determine district positioning for the three schools, noting it would stream live on the OSSAA Facebook page. News On 6 also posted on X that the toss had ended Gore's season, adding that coach Nathan McCurley reflected afterward on his seniors and the team's late-season rally.
