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Oklahoma high school football coaches hold a coin flip at Catfish Roundup restaurant in Seminole, Oklahoma, to determine their playoff fates.
You may remember a year ago when a pair of high school football programs in California and Texas both had their playoff hopes determined by a literal coin flip.
Well, it happened again on Friday night, this time in Oklahoma, where the Gore, Liberty, and Salisaw Central head coaches met at an all-you-can-eat catfish restaurant in Seminole, Oklahoma, to determine whether their seasons would continue.
The incident came after the three schools finished in a three-way tie for third place in District A-II-3. However, only two of the teams could advance to next week’s OSSAA playoffs.
🚨FULL CATFISH ROUND UP RECAP🚨
Here’s the story from the midnight coin toss chaos at the Catfish Round Up that sent Liberty and Central to the postseason, and ended the season for Gore.
Reaction from each HC in here. One of the craziest stories I’ve ever covered.
#OKPreps https://t.co/KiduGlv9eD
— TJ Eckert (@TJEckertKJRH) November 7, 2026
Oklahoma High School Football Program’s Season Ends On Coin Flip
The rules were simple.
Gore coach Nathan McCurley, Sallisaw Central coach Jeremy Thompson, and Liberty coach Nate Green met at the Catfish Round-Up restaurant at midnight.
The three coaches would each flip a coin. Whichever coach’s coin was opposite the other two would have their team eliminated. The others advanced to the postseason.
Ultimately, it took just one attempt to figure out which team was eliminated.
“That’s a heads. Got a tails for Liberty, and a tails for Sallisaw. So Gore would be eliminated from the playoffs,” an official presiding over the flip stated.
“We talked about possibly going to a football field and turning the lights on, but what’s more Oklahoman than standing in the parking lot of Catfish Roundup and settling who gets to go the playoffs on a coin toss,” said OSSAA assistant director Trinity Johnson.
Despite being eliminated, McCurley took the whole thing in stride.
“Unique situation. Really cool situation to be a part of. You hate that it doesn’t go your way. But at the end of the day it is what it is,” he said. “Regardless of how it went tonight, I’m really proud of our community. I’m proud of our kids, proud of our coaches.”
That’s an undeniably brutal way to see a season end. But you have to be impressed with McCurley’s comments, and have to bet that Gore will have a ton of new fans across the country moving forward.