A few coaches have commented to us over the season that, for as great as the State Championship games are, they have served to inject some of the negative aspects of college football into the high school games. Tonight, one of those problems is apparent: having committee voting determine the fate of football teams who have battled and worked for four months. Yet that’s the fact of things: there are going to be five games, each pitting a NorCal school against a SoCal school, spread over two days. Three of them don’t concern us: the Small Schools Division, Division III, and Division II. But Division I and the Open Division—ah, there’s the rub.
For the first time, the CIF has instituted the Open Division championship, in which the flat-out best team from the north, regardless of size and enrollment, will play the flat-out best team from the south. One problem: how do you define “flat-out best”? Take this year, where Poly is 14-0 and now CIF champion of the Pac-5, and Corona-Centennial is 14-0 and now CIF champion of their conference. It’s almost 100% certain that Poly and Centennial will both be playing next weekend—the question is who will get the nod for the SoCal Open Division berth, the team recognized as the best in the region.
Well, ten people have to decide and vote, Sunday afternoon. They are the commissioners of the ten CIF sections (Poly is in the Southern Section), and using the following criteria, they will attempt to determine who the “best” team is, between two undefeateds. First, they factor in record, which is moot since they’re both 14-0 (this is what cost Poly a shot at State last year since they had one nonleague loss). Then, strength of schedule, factoring in nonleague, league, and playoff wins—this raises an interesting question. Namely, will Lakewood’s forfeits (which do represent their official record) have a negative impact on Poly’s chances of an Open Division berth? Then, head to head competition and common opponents, neither of which will be a factor here, and a sportsmanship clause that shouldn’t come in to play.
In other words, the team that gets to play for the “real” state championship, the Open Division berth, will be either Poly or Centennial, based on which team is seen to have the stronger schedule—obviously, in our opinion, the team that emerged from the Pac-5, defeating the undefeated Tesoro Titans, deserves that nod.
As for their opponent, we don’t know nearly enough about the NorCal scene, but De La Salle won their championship game in convincing fashion, 34-10. Everything we read says they’re the odds-on favorites to be the NorCal representative in the Open Division game. In other words, it’s incredibly likely that at 3:30pm this afternoon, a state championship game between Poly and De La Salle could be announced.
As a journalist and a sports fan, I’m begging the ten commissioners, here, publicly: make it happen.
Check LBPostSports.com this afternoon, I’ll post live as the announcements come in, so you can share in our triumph or commiserate with us if somehow Centennial is deemed superior.