Nine games into the Arena Football League season, with his team 0-9, even the ever-optimistic Danny White knew it was highly unlikely his Utah Blaze would be playing during the final days of June. To do so, Utah would have to qualify for the playoffs.

So, naturally, the Blaze coach started making a few other plans.

"I had some golf tee times set up for this week. I had to cancel them," White deadpanned.

White may have been joking about his golf plans, but it is true that no one could have reasonably thought the Blaze would qualify for the playoffs after losing their first nine games of the season. After all, no AFL team had done it before.

Even more amazingly, the Blaze will host a first-round game today at 2 p.m. against the Colorado Crush after winning six of their final seven games.

"When you start out at 0-9 there are not too many people who are going to be in your corner," said Blaze quarterback Joe Germaine. "But the guys in our locker room definitely believed, and we just stayed on course, and good things happened. We kept working and had a good attitude, and things turned around for us."

Utah, Colorado and Grand Rapids — the AFL's final three teams to make the playoffs — all finished with identical 6-10 records. The Blaze earned the best seed of the three — and the home-field advantage in the wild-card round — by virtue of their recent head-to-head wins over both the Crush and the Rampage.

Now the Blaze's goal is to continue their unlikely turnaround season.

"We have a chance to do something that has never been done before," said White. "I think (the players) realize that, too."

While today is officially the postseason, virtually all the Blaze's games the past two months have been like the playoffs for them. One additional loss and they wouldn't have qualified for the postseason.

"We've been in the playoff mode for awhile," said defensive lineman Maurice Fountain, who was named this week to the AFL's all-rookie team. "We didn't quite jell in the first half of the season, but the second half of the season we started jelling, and we've been in a playoff mode ever since."

Utah has been to the playoffs in each of its first two seasons, but it lost road games. Today will be the team's first home playoff game.

"We've got to win," said Blaze receiver Aaron Boone. "It's the most important game of the season."