Randy Nyquist told his team that as far as he's concerned, the 5A playoffs start this week.

Second-ranked West Albany enters new territory in chasing its fourth straight Mid-Willamette Conference football title.

For the first time in that stretch, the Bulldogs (8-1, 6-0) started the final week of the regular season without having the championship already wrapped up.

West travels to No. 6 Crescent Valley (8-1, 6-0) on Friday night with the title up for grabs.

"We're pretty excited about it," said West senior running back Anthony LaCoste. "They're undefeated. We're undefeated. It's for the league title. We're just going to go out there and show them what we've got."

The Raiders have qualified for the state playoffs for the first time since 1996.

They've won six league games this season, their combined total from the last three years.

"We're going to give CV a run for their money, and I expect they're going to do the same," West junior quarterback Nick Orsborn said.

Both teams get a bye in the first round and have home games in the second round.

But the winner will have a better matchup based on state rankings. The winner would likely play an unranked team, while the loser would host third-ranked Sherwood.

The Bowmen defeated West Albany 22-20 in the season opener.

"There's some incentive there for us to be successful," Nyquist said.

Nyquist sees the game as a good preview for the postseason against a quality opponent.

West will get a good challenge and have to play well to win.

"I think it's a good way to get our pencil sharp before the playoffs," Nyquist said.

Corvallis at South Albany

It's pretty straightforward.

The winner of Friday's game is in the state playoffs and the loser is out.

It sets up a good rematch after Corvallis edged South 16-11 in the final game of the 2008 regular season, giving the Spartans the conference's third seed in the state playoffs while the Rebels took the fourth spot.

The winner gets to 4-3 in conference and will be the Mid-Willamette's third or fourth seed.

The seed depends on the outcome of the Lebanon at Dallas game, also Friday.

The loser is done for the season because Lebanon has the tiebreaker over both teams after the Warriors defeated both this season.

If Dallas was to beat Lebanon on Friday, Dallas, Lebanon and the Corvallis-South Albany loser would all be 3-4.

The first tiebreaker is head-to-head competition. All three teams would have

1-1 records against the other two.

The second tiebreaker involves starting with the top of the standings to see if any of the tied teams defeated any teams.

All three teams lost to Crescent Valley and West Albany.

Lebanon, with its victories against Corvallis and South Albany, wins the tiebreaker because one of those two teams would be the next highest in the conference standings.