Every year, around the time the holiday season rolls around, my dad and I have a conversation about a grim reality.

In most instances, it’s a realization that happens casually. Maybe my dad will bring it up while we’re watching a game on TV; maybe I’ll mention it in the car as I’m scrolling through schedules and scores. Regardless of who speaks or the context in which it’s uttered, it’s a variation on the most terrifying nine words the English language can construct:

“Wow, we only have a month of football left.”

Fortunately for NFL and college fans, there are still a couple months before that dreadful reckoning that the football-less two-thirds of the year is looming hits. Yet in Maine high school football, that time is just about here — and it’s a reminder to cherish what we have left.

It seems crazy to think that we’re already at the end of the regular season, which concludes for Class B, Class C and the eight-man Large School class this weekend and ended for eight-man Small School a week ago. The first football game I covered for the Morning Sentinel, Skowhegan’s 41-21 win over Lawrence in Week 1, seems like it was a week or two ago, not seven.

But here we are, and with each passing week, we’ll see the field begin to thin. Eleven teams will play their final games this weekend by failing to qualify for the playoffs in the aforementioned classes; five more will turn in their gear after losing in the eight-man Small School quarterfinals; three others, Mount View, St. John Valley and Traip Academy, are already done.

It would be easier, perhaps, if the playoffs lasted a bit longer, but Maine is a small state with far fewer teams compared to most other states, making the postseason rather fleeting. The fact that there are six classes for only 79 teams — a structure that the Maine Principals’ Association needs to address, I might add — only compounds that.

There’s no need to eulogize just yet, though. After all, the playoffs provide some of the best football of the season, and for five of the state’s six classes, they’ve yet to even begin. The matchups that scribes, players, coaches and fans alike have been waiting to see all season long aren’t behind us; they’re ahead.

If there’s beauty to be found in Maine’s current football structure, it’s that we get a smorgasbord of different things all at once. Playoff games, regular season finales, senior nights, rivalry showdowns, Friday night lights, blustery Saturday afternoons beneath the fall foliage are all still to come, even if the season, from a technical standpoint, has passed us by.

It’s a lot happening all at once, but that’s what makes it so great. The sheer madness that comes with playoff time in high school sports means there is so much potential for great finishes, spectacular performances, joyous celebrations and heartbreaking defeats. You can always count on those things in high school football, but as late October looms, you can count on them even more.

In Central Maine Newspapers territory alone, there are Falmouth-Cony, Mt. Blue-Gardiner and Skowhegan-Windham regular season finales as well as an eight-man playoff battle between Maranacook and Sacopee Valley. Further north, the eight-man Small School North playoffs feature a region so tight that multiple coin tosses were needed to decide seedings. To our south, all eyes are on a high-stakes clash between Portland and South Portland.

There will be some more regular season clashes next week in Class A (hello, juicy Edward Little-Lewiston rivalry game) and Class D (bring on Lisbon-Winthrop/Monmouth/Hall-Dale), but for much of the state, everything next week is hypothetical. There’ll be not knowing what’s next when the final seconds tick off; instead, there’ll be scoreboard-watching and waiting for matchup announcements. Nothing is guaranteed.

“We have this conversation all the time of how you have to cherish every moment because it could be your last time on the field,” said Falmouth head coach John Fitzsimmons. “If you win, you move on, and if you don’t, you don’t want to have any thoughts of, ‘Wow, I wasn’t working as hard as I should’ve.’ You really have to have an understanding of how precious this moment is.”

It certainly is precious, but it’s also brief. Lifting a Gold Ball is the product of years of offseason lifting and conditioning, two-a-days under the hot sun and executing on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons. Once that trophy is lifted, though, it’s over, and we’re left waiting another nine months for the game to arrive again.

That wait, as my dad always says, is the darkest time of year — and it’s one that will be even darker if we don’t revel in the five weeks still to come.

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