For one, Middle Creek is our conference champion. Holly Springs has wrapped up the second spot. Fuquay-Varina will have third with either a win on Friday against Lee County or an Athens Drive loss.

Those four teams are in, but how many others will be? Panther Creek (4-6), and possibly Cary (5-5) are on the bubble.

Those two will face each other on Friday, and the loser will be sweating bullets until the bracket is announced.

It's a complicated process to select the playoff field and I sure as heck wouldn't want to be the guy who has to figure it all out. Especially since there are currently 75 4-A teams in position to be playoff-eligible going into Friday.

There are six three-win teams, and another eight teams have four wins and will be looking for five. That's 14 teams vying for three spots.

Typically, five wins puts you in the playoffs, but if enough of these four-win teams win, that won't be the case.

Now here's what you need to know in regards to the two divisions of 4-A playoffs (the school's average daily membership rank out of the 96 4-A schools will be in parentheses):

1. Panther Creek (15th) and Cary (27th), should they make it into the playoffs, will be in the 4-AA bracket.

2. Fuquay-Varina (37th) has the 31st-highest ADM for any of the 75 teams in position for the playoffs, which means no matter who makes it, they'll be in the 4-AA playoffs.

3. Middle Creek (55th) and Holly Springs (52nd) are locks for the 4-A playoff bracket.

4. Athens Drive (50th) could go either way. They've got the 40th-highest ADM number of the 75, and nine "bubble" teams are ranked ahead of them. If eight or nine of them fail to reach the playoffs, Athens is in the 4-AA playoffs. Anything less puts them in the 4-A.

5. Lee County (92nd) is destined for the 4-A playoffs should they get in.

And, as we do on the SWakeSports blog every week, we'll look back at Friday's games.

How I did: Winners called correctly: 3-of-4 (45-14 this year, 76%)

Margin of victory within 7-points:1-of-4 (I had Holly Springs by 28 -- they won by 24)

I'm proud of: Even though I didn't pick it, I knew Lee County would be trouble for Panther Creek. The Yellow Jackets went 74 yards in 1:02 to score, putting them within one.

Coach Burton Cates, slowly turning around that program in his first year, went for two and Daniel Dillon stretched his arm across the plane to get it. The Catamounts got the ball down to the 5-yard line with next to no time left, but Lee blocked the attempt with no time left.

I'm embarrassed about: This has nothing to do with predictions, but I muffed a punt from Middle Creek's Matt Frongello. Instead of dropping my pad and pen, I stupidly reached out with that arm hoping to trap the ball against the top of my hand with the other.

The ball smacked against my thumb and the ball went straight to the ground, where I covered it up. Too late. I got my share of ridicule at the drop -- and rightly so. I wasn't going to get hit -- so why not make that play?

Looking at the games

Interesting to note: The conference has four runners with more than 1,000 yards -- three juniors, one sophomore. All four of the league's top four passers are also juniors.

So even though five of the conference's top eight receivers will be graduating, expect the conference to be even stronger when this year's underclassmen become juniors and seniors.

Player of the week: Athens Drive junior Kyree Green became the second player in the conference to record more than 1,500 yards and 20 touchdowns with a 26-carry, 241-yard performance Friday against Apex.

Green's three touchdowns bring his total to 21 this year. In a pass-first offense, he's got 1,504 yards on the ground. Only Cory Hunter has more of each.

Runner-up: Middle Creek's defense gets the nod in this category. They limited Cory Hunter to 77 yards on the ground, and aside from an 83-yard bomb late in the fourth quarter, the Mustangs held Fuquay to 159 yards of total offense.

The Bengals had gone over 300 yards on the ground in eight of their previous games and their 12 points were a season-low. Middle Creek is a finesse team, but can win ugly thanks to their defensive efforts.

Stat of the week: You have to go all the way back to 2005 (when it was the Tri-Eight Conference as Panther Creek had just opened) to find the last time Fuquay or Middle Creek didn't win at least a share of the conference title.

That year's winner? Green Hope. The Falcons went all the way to the state title game that year, but have gone just 2-43 since (one of those was awarded for the use of an ineligible player by Northern Durham), including wrapping up their second consecutive winless season on Friday.

The current 27-game losing streak is the longest active in 4-A, but not even halfway to the state record, held by the now-defunct Gumberry High at 59 games.