High school football: 5 games to keep an eye on during Week 7

Region play officially gets underway this week for the entire state, with key region clashes going on across Utah. Here’s a look at five intriguing games on tap this week that will go a long way toward shaping region faces.
This showdown was almost 6-0 vs. 6-0, but Orem couldn’t hold on to a double-digit second-half lead in suffering its first loss of the season to Sky View last week.
Regardless, this is the best game on tap in 5A with major Region 7 title and RPI implications on the line.
Maple Mountain’s success is arguably the biggest surprise of the 2024 season as the Golden Eagles have taken a major step forward in Kalin Hall’s second season as head coach after last year’s 6-6 debut.
Maple Mountain was 4-2 at this point last year, but it’s been much more dominant offensively and defensively throughout its six wins this season. In 2022 the program finished 1-9, so nobody is taking anything for granted.
Orem is also enjoying some resurgence as it has already equaled its total of five wins from a year ago.
The biggest thing to watch will be Orem’s offense, which ranks second in 5A in averaging 40.3 ppg against Maple Mountain’s stingy defense, which is second in 5A only allowing 12.8 ppg.
This is just the fifth meeting between the schools since Maple Mountain opened in 2009. The Golden Eagles won last year’s region game pretty easily 31-14.
This nonregion game’s significance got a huge boost with Stansbury’s win over Park City last week, its first win over the Miners since 2018.
Even though both of these teams are only 4-2, they’re undefeated in region play and will be the favorite to win the rest of their region games.
Neither team, however, is in a desirable top four RPI position at the moment, and it will be difficult for the loser of this game to have a realistic shot at climbing back into a top four spot.
Defending 4A champ Crimson Cliffs is in the midst of a four-game winning streak after losing to Morgan and Bingham the first two weeks. Defense has been the catalyst to the resurgence allowing just 16.0 ppg during the winning streak.
Stansbury started a bit slow as well, losing to Green Canyon and Ridgeline in back-to-back weeks to open the year 1-2. With a new coach and a new offensive schemes, the slow start was perhaps expected. Lee Leslie’s team, however, has started to find a groove in recent weeks and it showed with a terrific defensive performance in last week’s 14-10 win over Park City.
Stansbury’s defense will need to be even better to slow down Crimson Cliffs’ red-hot offense.
These teams met in the same week last year, with Crimson Cliffs dominating in St. George, rolling to the lopsided 62-20 win. The Mustangs scored TDs on offense, defense and special teams in the win.
This week’s Region 3 game of the week has the potential to be one of the best games of the regular season.
Even if you throw all the rivalry storylines out the window, these are still two of the best teams in 6A and both have very legit state title aspirations.
Lehi is the only undefeated team remaining in 6A, and it’s coming off a very convincing victory over American Fork last week in its Region 3 opener. The Pioneers scored twice on defense in that win, and held the Cavemen scoreless in the second half to pull away.
Skyridge rolled past Westlake 40-0 in its region opener last week, a strong bounce-back performance after falling to Corner Canyon 38-28 the week prior in a rematch of last year’s state championship.
Skyridge won last year’s meeting 35-17. Through the first six weeks this season though, Lehi has looked like the more dominant defensive team which should give it confidence heading into this Thursday night game.
Several questions about the 1A landscape will be answered in Week 7 in this clash of undefeated teams.
Will defending 1A champ Beaver continue its defensive dominance as it takes a step toward another state title? Or will North Summit’s stout defense get the upper hand on its home field to claim the title of 1A favorite heading into playoffs?
Or, and perhaps most likely, this game will be extremely close throughout with just a couple plays deciding the outcome. Immediately, the loser will start conjuring up subtle adjustments to make in the inevitable playoff rematch.
Beaver’s defense has only allowed six touchdowns this season, and two of those were in the final six minutes of a blowout win over Duchesne.
North Summit’s defense isn’t far off that pace allowing just 10.1 ppg.
This is the 25th meeting between these two schools dating back to 1972, with Beaver dominating the series 18-6. Thirteen of those meetings have occurred in the playoffs.
Beaver has won the past seven meetings, with North Summit’s last win coming in the 2011 season opener.
Both these teams scheduled tough preseason for themselves, but neither of these proud programs delivered much in those first five weeks as they each stumbled to 1-4 records.
Week 6 finally brought some semblance of normalcy for Bingham and Herriman as they won their Region 2 openers over Copper Hills and Riverton respectively.
Neither is expected to contend with Corner Canyon for the Region 2 title, but somebody has to finish second in region, and with it will come a much better RPI seed and playoff path.
Mountain Ridge is still very much in the mix for region runner-up status, but the winner of this game could have the inside track.
Bingham’s offense has struggled most of the season, but it found a little rhythm in the second quarter of its 35-14 win over Copper Hills last week. Finding a way to build on that will be key against Herriman.
Herriman’s offense has been much more consistent this season, and it’s just a couple plays away from being 4-2 this season instead of 2-4 as it gave up late touchdowns in close losses to both Syracuse and Green Valley, Nevada.