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FAIRBANKS — Though the Barrow Whalers will be making history above the Arctic Circle and defending champion Juneau-Douglas is at Palmer, today’s best high school football game could be in the Interior.

When the state’s No. 1-ranked North Pole Patriots (8-0, 6-0 Railbelt Conference) take on the fourth-seeded Colony Knights (5-3, 4-2 Railbelt) at 6 tonight on Patriot Pride Field in North Pole, Colony head coach Jamie Mayo expects to see the toughest game of the weekend.

“Not to discredit any other team or any other game, but I think this is easily the premier game in the first round of the playoffs,” Mayo said by phone Thursday night. “And who knows? It may even be the premier game further down the road. I think we’ve got two of the best teams in the state.”

The game will be a rematch of a 20-16 Patriots win on Aug. 9, which kick-started North Pole’s season and left Colony in a bind facing two road games.

It was labeled as a revenge game by some of the Patriots beforehand, as they hadn’t beaten the Knights in three years, and they took advantage of Knights mistakes to overcome a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter.

“Our kids were genuinely angry after that game,” Mayo said. “Not so much that we lost — I’m sure they were mad about that — but it’s the way we lost.”

Though both teams have evolved in the eight weeks since then, North Pole coach Richard Henert believes tonight’s game will be just as close.

“They play a pretty similar style of football as our own: run-heavy, good defense,” Henert said. “We’re expecting much of the same this time around.”

Since then, the Patriots went on to survive a string of close calls — and even a game split into two days — on their way to an undefeated season.

North Pole got a scare in week two, when it needed a late goal-line stop from its defense to fend off West Valley — in a second half that started nearly 12 hours after the first due to severe weather.

But holding off opponents at the goal line has become relatively routine for the Patriots, who have kept opponents with a first-and-goal out of the end zone at least three times.

Needing a fourth-quarter surge to defeat West Anchorage 27-7 and a late score to top Palmer 14-7, North Pole’s 8-0 season easily could have been 4-4.

“It may not be easy on the stomach, having to watch all those close games as a coach,” Henert said, “but it hopefully builds a lot of character, and the kids have confidence in close games knowing that they’ve been through it before.”

Henert’s not worried about the target that the No. 1 ranking puts on the Patriots.

“The nice thing is, these kids haven’t been concerned about rankings all year long,” he said. “They’ve just been enjoying playing the game of football.”

Working under the late Buck Nystrom, Henert was an assistant for North Pole when the Patriots won the large-schools championship in 2004. Since then, North Pole has only been in one playoff game — a 39-7 loss at Juneau-Douglas the next year.

The only current player to ever be on a playoff roster is wide receiver Trevor McCumby.

Though the rest of the Patriots haven’t been to the postseason, they have played in plenty of must-win games.

Opening the 2007 season with three losses, including two in conference play, the Patriots were fighting for their postseason lives before September. The team, which had few seniors, was able to right the ship but barely missed out on the playoffs with a 3-3 Railbelt mark and a 4-4 overall record.

That experience helped shape this year’s senior-laden squad — 22 were on the roster last Saturday — because last year’s juniors had to play “up” and assume leadership roles, Henert said.

“I think they’ve learned a lot,” Henert said, “from not just having to be at the varsity level, but being leaders at the varsity level last year.”

On the other hand, Colony followed its Aug. 9 loss with another defeat at Soldotna. It was an 0-2 team that wouldn’t play on its home field until week four.

“When we set the schedule up with three road games against what we thought were gonna be three pretty good teams, we knew it would pretty much define our team,” Mayo said.

But the Knights’ road trek ended on a positive note when they downed Lathrop 56-6 on Aug. 22.

That win re-energized Colony and began a five-game winning streak — including four victories versus Railbelt opponents. The streak included a 27-13 win over West Valley.

Colony ended its regular season with a 22-19 loss at home against Juneau-Douglas, which Mayo found to be encouraging despite a defeat.

“In the last game against Juneau, we accomplished what we wanted,” Mayo said.

So now it’s Colony’s chance at vengeance, and Mayo is confident the Knights can pull off the upset.

“I realize they’re undefeated, ranked No. 1 and we’re a No. 4 seed,” he said, “but ... out of the four playoff teams, I think the two of us match up pretty darn well.”

The Knights bring plenty of offensive power with Collin Murphy, the state’s seventh-best rusher (853 yards, 13 touchdowns) and ninth-best passer (671 yards, nine TDs). Colony’s Matt Jaronik ranks ninth among the state’s receivers with 207 yards and two touchdowns.

Mayo will take a win any way he can get it, but he said he hopes a game of this magnitude will “live up to the hype” and be as competitive as the season opener.

“I’d hate to go out there and beat them 35-nothin’ or have them beat us 35-nothin’,” Mayo said. “That’d be kind of a boring game for the fans.

“It’d probably put the coaches at ease a little more. That first game, I know Rich was going nuts and I was going nuts. It was killing us, but the fans loved it.”

The forecast for today calls for snow, which plays to each of the teams’ strengths of defense and hard-nosed running, so neither coach expects an advantage from the weather.

“Snow, like mud, is pretty much an equalizer,” Mayo said. “... It’s gonna be tough for both teams.”

Henert said any strategy concerning weather would be a game-day decision.

Though there’s been lots of motivational speeches and bulletin-board material, come kickoff, Henert feels those things won’t matter.

“There’s a lot of factors, but it all boils down to who’s playing the hardest,” he said.