By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
For the first time in more than two years, the Champions Indoor Football league will enter postseason play, and the Salina Liberty are in the hunt for the team's first ever national title.
While Salina will be the team to beat in these playoffs, they will be challenged by the Omaha Beef, Sioux City Bandits and Dodge City Law, who all have their own ideas about who should collect the crown this season.
Here are how the four playoff teams stack up as we get set for a thrilling 2021 tournament.
1. Salina Liberty (10-1)
Salina’s dominance in 2021 is something unrivalled by most number one seeds in previous CIF seasons. The team enters the playoffs with the best scoring offense in the league by 12 points per game and the second best scoring defense, outscoring opponents by almost 20 ppg on average.
As a defensive unit, the Liberty lead the league in takeaways and as an offense have surrendered the ball half as many times as the next best team.
All of this is made even more impressive by the fact that Salina has dealt with major injuries this season including at quarterback, where season starter Tyrie Adams was forced to sit in half of the teams games. Despite losing their QB the Liberty didn’t miss a step as Mitch Kidd took over and won all but one of the teams last six games.
With a healthy squad and reigning CIF coach of the year Heron O’Neal at the helm Salina looks like the team to beat this postseason.
2. Omaha Beef (7-4)
The longest-tenured franchise in the CIF has seen a resurgence this season as the Omaha Beef secured the two seed for the 2021 playoffs.
In addition to an impressive resume that saw the Beef win six of their last eight games, Omaha is the only team in the CIF who has taken down the Salina Liberty and would love a chance to try to do it again in the championship round.
While the Beef are the owners of the worst scoring offense of the postseason teams, Omaha has been able to hang their hats on defense this year, allowing a league-best 28.9 points per game.
Omaha also leads the league in sacks and allows the fewest passing yards per game of any team in the CIF.
3. Sioux City Bandits (6-5)
A streak of three wins in four games including a win over Omaha in the finale wasn’t enough to salvage a home playoff game for Sioux City in 2021.
One of the most consistent franchises in the CIF got off to a dismal start, dropping four of their first six league games before turning things around and securing the three seed.
While none of the stats jump off the page for this year’s Bandit squad, the organization has done some of its best work in the postseason. Sioux City won the inaugural Champions Bowl back in 2015 and could find themselves there again if they can get through Omaha on Friday.
4. Dodge City Law (4-6)
For a team that wasn’t supposed to take the field until 2022, this has been a dream season for Dodge City. The Law stepped up to fill a hole left by the Oklahoma Flying Aces.
Despite having a losing record, the Law squeaked into the playoff thanks to a 2/3 tiebreaker with the Wichita Force and now have an opportunity to prove that their success this season wasn’t a fluke.
Unfortunately for Dodge City, their reward for all of this work is a rematch with the Liberty, a team that has already beaten them twice this season, in Salina.
The Law have done some of their best work in shootouts this season, using a combination of two quarterbacks to put up big numbers as the second leading scoring offense in the league this year.
The Omaha Beef will host the Sioux City Bandits at 7:30 pm on Friday followed by a 6:30 Saturday duel between the Liberty and Law.
The winners will square off in the Champions Bowl on July 17th.
For more coverage of the CIF playoffs stay tuned to the Salina Post.