I love upsets.

Watching the little guys stand up and take out the supposedly unbeatable giant is one of the great thrills of sports at all levels and has been since David literally squared off against Goliath.

But for all of the exciting times that the underdog has been glorified for achieving the unthinkable, statistics give the huge edge to the powerhouses.

Take this year's Utah high school football championships that will be played at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Friday, for example.

The six participating teams have lost a grand total of four games between them by the diminutive sum of 28 total points.

All of them proved to be the best in their respective leagues, with only one defeat taking place in region play -- although even that is a bit misleading since 3A finalist Hurricane lost to 4A Pine View by six in double overtime in the odd split region in the St. George area.

The upstarts are gone.

But that provides its own upside because these are the games that many wanted to see.

They pit the top-two ranked teams in each classification, meaning the stars have aligned for all three contests to arguably be the best games of the year.

On paper.

Bingham and Alta have met before -- with the Hawks winning by eight in the second week of the season -- but no one has been more consistent in Class 5A over the past few years than these two leviathans.

Hurricane now gets a chance to prove that a schedule that included 4A teams Pine View and Snow Canyon prepared it to take down unbeaten Juan Diego in the 3A battle.

But I only have a passing interest in what happens in those games.

I want Timpview-Cottonwood.

This is the prize fight between Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas, the extra 18 holes at the U.S. Open between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate, the Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants.

The elements are in place. On the one side, you have the dominating champions in Timpview and its 35 straight wins; on the other, you have a proud challenger in Cottonwood that believes it can be the one to topple the giant.

All year long, I've heard how the Thunderbirds are the best team in the classification -- and maybe the state -- but that the only team that could beat them is a strong Colt squad.

Now they have the chance.

It almost didn't happen for either of the teams, as both higher-ranked squads had to overcome scares in the semifinals. Pine View and Mountain Crest -- also winners of their respective regions -- didn't care about crashing the party and came up only a few feet away from perhaps doing just that.

I don't know what effect those narrow escapes will have on Timpview and Cottonwood, but I hope it refocused both sides.

I want these two behemoths playing hard, smart and at the top of their games. I'm hoping for a classic showdown as both sides prove they belong at the top of the classification by throwing everything they have at the opposing team.

If both teams play 100 percent, my money will be on the Thunderbirds because I think they're the better team.

But not by much.

The time to speculate is almost over -- now it's time to watch and enjoy.

• Jared Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@heraldextra.com.