GLADSTONE — Thanks to a change in playoff entry calculations, the Gladstone football team is being rewarded for its strength of schedule — entering the playoffs despite a 4-5 regular-season record that would have seen them out of playoff contention just a year ago.

“I love it (the playoff system change),” Gladstone coach Jeff Hansen said. “I’ve been hoping for a change to the system for several years now. I think the old system rewarded schools who padded their schedule with soft competition, so it was just trying to get the easiest pathway to six wins you could possibly get. As a program, we never did that. We always play up. Five of our nine games this season were against teams that were at least one division (and sometimes) two or three larger than us, and (some of them) are league champions. We have one of the toughest schedules in the state, so it’s nice to be rewarded for playing up in competition because that’s the only way your program gets better. In my estimation, this was a long time coming. … I think that embracing good competition is something that should be rewarded.”

The opening opponent for the Braves is a familiar one, Negaunee (7-2). The Miners and Gladstone faced off less than a month ago (Oct. 8) in Negaunee, and it was a coin flip ending, with the Miners edging the Braves 31-30.

“(How the Oct. 8 match-up went, 31-30 loss,) it just adds motivation,” Hansen said. “You’re talking about the last game basically coming down to one play… I think it adds even more motivation than the first time around and add to the fact that it’s also a playoff game. I think that we’re just really highly motivated to get back after it and to avenge our one-point loss.”

With the close loss, there are definitely some things that Hansen feels the Braves can clean up and adjust.

“I would like to be able to control the football better than we did the first time around — less turnovers for sure,” he said. “To try to make it so that we’re not sitting there having the game essentially locked in with a minute to play in the game. I would much rather control the line of scrimmage better than we did last time, and we’ve adjusted schematically to make that happen. I think the combination (of those things) will help keep the game balanced, so it’s not such a wild affair scoring-wise. I don’t think either us or Negaunee saw a 31-30 game coming to pass.

“Last time it was a shootout, so you just never know really. I would expect now that we’ve seen each other that it’s going to be tighter and closer to the vest, so I don’t think you’re going to see quite as much scoring.”

Hansen reiterated the excitement and the motivation running through the team from entering the playoffs.

“I think it’s fantastic to be in the playoffs, and there’s a lot of mojo in the locker room and juice in practice when it comes to this,” he said “It’s a lot of fun to be in the playoff field.”

The Braves travel to Negaunee today for their playoff opener at 7 p.m.