If things go according to plan this week, even though Lone Peak coach Quincy Lewis or Bingham coach Mark Dubach will never admit looking ahead, dialog about state tournament pairings is sure to become a hot topic.

Even though no one is discrediting the possibility of an upset along the way, No. 1 Lone Peak and No. 2 Bingham are on a state tournament collision course, but it's not a championship course.

With the Utah High School Activities Associations' rotating state tournament brackets, the Region 3 and Region 4 champions just happen to be on the same side of the bracket this year. As a result, if both Lone Peak and Bingham win their first two games on Tuesday and Thursday, fans can expect a thrilling 5A semifinal game showdown between the state's two best teams at 7:40 p.m.

If it transpires that way, first of all, what a shame it's not for the championship, and secondly, those who believe the playoffs need to be seeded will have some momentum on their side.

Don't expect much of anything to come of it though.

"(Coaches) talk about it a lot, but when it comes down to it, no one can agree on the process," said Jerry Bovee, UHSAA assistant director.

Whether it's in basketball, football or wrestling, the sports that typically generate the most talk about the need to seed, the various coaches all have different ideas. If one of the associations ever stepped up with a unanimous process, the UHSAA executive committee might give it a serious look.

Even then it might be a tough sell.

For convenience and practical purposes, the UHSAA uses the same generic bracket throughout the course of a school year for nine sports: football, boys and girls soccer, volleyball, wrestling, basketball, baseball, softball and tennis.

Between each of those sports' coaches associations, if they really sat down and hammered out an objective process to seed their own respective tournaments, the end result would likely be nine different formulas.

"We're looking at it from a little broader perspective," said Bovee.

Ironically enough, as often as the luck of the draw gets it wrong, it gets it right.

Last fall, the Region 2 and Region 3 football champions just happened to be on the opposite side of the bracket, resulting in one of the most exciting and most attended football championship games ever between Bingham and Alta.

Just imagine if that had been a semifinal game, and the championship would've been either of the boring lopsided semifinal games involving Fremont or Pleasant Grove.

Under the current seeding process, a bracket template is created for each school year, which ensures that higher seeds play lower seeds in the early rounds. It basically reads Region 4 No. 4 vs. Region 3 No. 1, etc. The regions rotate each year during the four-year alignment cycle.