THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Scenic playoffs, and other stuff

A beautiful, sunshiney late-October afternoon, with a touch of snow in the mountains as a backdrop — quite the scene for watching playoff football in Bonners Ferry.

And the Badgers delivered, beating Wood River 21-7 to advance to the quarterfinals of the state 3A playoffs.

Bonners is one of the few teams still left up in the North part of North Idaho.

Post Falls, which had a bye last week, plays host to Rocky Mountain of Meridian this week in the 5A quarterfinals. But Lewiston, the 5A Inland Empire League runner-up, was upset 14-7 at home by Middleton on Friday night.

Lakeland (4A) and Timberlake (3A) both put up the good fight on the road, but lost on Friday night. And St. Maries (2A) and Clark Fork (1A Division II) were eliminated Saturday afternoon.

Kellogg had a bye in the first round, and travels to top-seeded Bear Lake in the 2A quarterfinals.

Mullan/St. Regis also had a bye, and will play host to Garden Valley this week in the 1A Division II quarterfinals.

And of course Sandpoint, with state title aspirations, is home vs. Shelley this week in the state 4A quarterfinals.

Other stuff …

WOE, COUGS?:I realize it was “big, bad, 14th-ranked Utah” that rolled into Pullman on Thursday night to take on perennial underdog Washington State.

But it was also Utah, without its starting quarterback and its top two running backs, that left the Palouse with a 21-17 victory.

I realize WSU was missing a couple key players too, but c’mon.

The Cougars still had their Heralded Quarterback of the Year, and some pretty good receivers, to challenge a Utah defense that, not that long ago, looked befuddled against the forward pass against an Ohio State offense missing its top two receivers.

But that run-and-shoot attack was held somewhat in check by the Utes.

The locals treated WSU’s win at then-No. 19 Wisconsin like it was David slaying Goliath. A nice win, but the Cougs play in a big-boy conference as well. (Then again, Wisconsin is only 4-4 and fired its coach three weeks after losing to WSU, so there’s that).

I think WSU (4-4, 1-4 Pac-12) might be a better team than even it or its fans think it is. It was a little weird to hear the Cougs complain about being shorthanded when they lost their bowl game last year — to a MAC team also missing some key players.

The upcoming schedule — at Stanford, vs. Arizona State, at Arizona — is set up for the Cougs to regain momentum heading into the Apple Cup in Pullman on Thanksgiving weekend.

So bowl eligibility is still in sight for WSU, believe it or not.

SINCE 1995, when the playoffs expanded to include a wild-card team, 40 teams have won 100 games in the regular season.

Only five (so far) have gone on to win the World Series.

The Houston Astros, currently playing the 87-win Phillies in the World Series, could make it six this year.

So much for rooting for your team to win as many games as it can. All it gets you is one extra home game in a series.

Just get into the playoffs.

And no, I’m not bitter because the Dodgers are four of those 100-win teams — all since 2017 — to not win it all.

OK, maybe a little bit.

I know a lot of you like to see the underdogs win. I don’t mind that every now and then, but maybe we ought to reward teams a little more for playing so well in the regular season.

So if a team like the Dodgers, who finished a whopping 22 games ahead of the Padres, meet in a best-of-7 series, the Padres should have to win five of the seven games, instead of just four. Or maybe they should have to win six.

Other provisions could be made, too — like, if someone on the other team failed to come through when he was a rental on your team, and if a pitch just happened to get away while he was at bat … well, sorry ‘bout that.

Then again, maybe the aforementioned Dodgers team(s) could manage to get a clutch hit every once in a while in the postseason, and/or not watch their bullpen implode.

Either way, for better or for worse, playoff baseball is nothing like regular season baseball.

The process of drawing a base on balls in the postseason seems like a big deal in certain cities. In others, it’s a time to order a beer.

In the postseason, a right-handed hitter pulling his hands in to muscle a ball over the second baseman’s head into shallow right center is lauded as a tremendous at-bat, and often contributes to a big inning.

In the regular season, nobody cares because the next three batters go flyout, strikeout, flyout.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.