Sports · Dearborn
Dearborn’s two Division 1 playoff teams on Friday: Fordson hosts Belleville in a near-even 4-5 game, and Dearborn High visits unbeaten Saline
DEARBORN, Mich. — Two Dearborn high school football teams open the MHSAA Division 1 playoffs Friday night, Oct. 30, and they face very different odds. Dearborn Fordson (7-2) hosts Belleville (6-3) in a matchup the state’s own numbers call close to even, while Dearborn High (5-4) travels to Saline (9-0), one of the top seeds in the region. Both games kick off at 7 p.m.
Both are district semifinals in Region 3, according to the MHSAA pairings.
Fordson vs. Belleville: a coin flip on paper. The MHSAA seeds teams by playoff-point average, and the top-ranked team in each pairing hosts. Fordson finished at 71.333 and Belleville at 70.667, a gap of less than one point, so the Tractors earned home field by the narrowest margin of any pairing in the region. By The Mitten Daily’s count of the eight Region 3 averages, that makes Fordson the No. 4 seed and Belleville No. 5. The game is at Fordson High School on Ford Road, with tickets through GoFan and a stream on the NFHS Network.
The winner gets the District 1 final the weekend of Nov. 6-7 against the winner of Plymouth (4-5) at Detroit Cass Tech (9-0). Cass Tech posted the region’s best average, 76.861.
Dearborn at Saline: a tall order. Dearborn’s 55.667 average put the Pioneers No. 7 of the eight teams in the region, sending them on the road to No. 2 Saline (76.778), which plays at Hornet Stadium, 1300 Parkway. Saline has rolled through its schedule. In its last five games listed by High School On SI, the Hornets beat Lake Orion 42-14, Bedford 35-21, River Rouge 42-21, Ann Arbor Huron 61-0 and Monroe 42-6.
Dearborn comes in with a mixed run: in the same listing, the Pioneers beat Plymouth 55-21 and Wayne Memorial 56-7, lost 41-14 at Hartland and fell 28-27 to Brighton, a one-point loss to a team that also made the Division 1 field.
The Saline-Dearborn winner faces the winner of Brownstown Woodhaven (7-2) at Northville (7-2) in the District 2 final.
What comes next. District finals are the weekend of Nov. 6-7 and regional finals are Nov. 13-14, the MHSAA said. The pairings for the first three rounds are set by playoff-point average, with the higher-ranked team hosting no matter the distance.
Fans heading to Fordson can find the city’s traffic trouble spots in our look at Dearborn’s most dangerous intersections.
Sources:
Michigan High School Athletic Association, “2026 MHSAA Football Playoff Pairings Announced” (Region 3 pairings, records, playoff-point averages, hosting rules, Nov. 6-7 and Nov. 13-14 rounds), https://www.mhsaa.com/sports/football/stories/2026-mhsaa-football-playoff-pairings-announced
High School On SI, Dearborn vs. Saline game page (last five results for both teams), https://www.si.com/high-school/stats/michigan/football/games/6908092-dearborn-vs-saline
The Saline Post, “Playoff Football - Saline vs Dearborn” (7 p.m. Oct. 30, Hornet Stadium, 1300 Parkway), https://thesalinepost.com/g/saline-mi/e/394328/playoff-football-saline-vs-dearborn
GoFan, MHSAA Football District Semifinal, Dearborn Fordson vs. Belleville, Oct. 30, 2026, https://gofan.co/event/6996971
NFHS Network, Belleville vs. Fordson, Oct. 30, 2026, 7 p.m., https://get.nfhsnetwork.com/events/fordson-high-school-dearborn-mi/gam68b2d008f0
Photo: w_lemay, “Fordson High School, Ford Road, Fordson, Dearborn, MI.jpg,” Sept. 6, 2024, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/), cropped and color-adjusted; derivative shared under the same license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fordson_High_School,_Ford_Road,_Fordson,_Dearborn,_MI.jpg
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