Kalani football thinking playoffs?

Playoffs? For Kalani football?

That’s where the Falcons find themselves heading into a pivotal game against Radford on Friday night in a battle of two quarterbacks who will throw it all over the field.

The final numbers should be pretty big when Radford’s Cody Lui-Yuen (643 yards, 8 TD, 3 INT, 51-percent passing in 3 OIA White games) and Kalani’s Noah Brum (698 yards, 9 TD, 3 INT, 53-percent passing in 3 OIA White games) square off in a game that will give trouble to anyone trying to keep stats.

Kalani (2-2 overall) is already halfway toward matching its school record for wins since 1973. But even bigger is the possibility of the Falcons playing in their first-ever playoff game during that span.

The top four teams in the OIA White advance to the playoffs to determine the two representatives in the Division II state tournament. Results over the first month of the season suggest that the four spots will likely come down to five teams, leaving Kaiser (2-0), Radford (2-1), Kalani (2-1), Nanakuli (2-1) or Kalaheo (2-1) as the odd team out.

Assuming Kaiser avoids a major upset and wins the rest of its games, that leaves four teams for three spots. Kalani has already beaten Kalaheo, handing the Mustangs their only league loss so far, 34-17 last Saturday.

The Falcons also own a big 40-8 win over Pearl City (1-1), which has already had its bye and has yet to play any of the other four “contenders” in the league.

With a victory over Radford, that would mean the Falcons would have to lose at least two of their final four games to miss out on the playoffs. Kalani’s final four opponents are a combined 3-12 overall and 3-8 in league play.

Even with a loss to the Rams, Kalani could still make the playoffs with winnable games against Anuenue, Roosevelt and Waialua still ahead.

But a win over Radford? That would most certainly give the Falcons plenty of reasons to start talking about playoffs, man.