The CIF Southern Section football playoff brackets will be released Sunday morning.
The first thing to know is that teams are placed into one the Southern Section’s 14 playoff divisions according to how the teams are ranked by HSratings.com.
Much of the older rules for playoff participation remain – like guaranteed playoff berths for finishing among the top two teams in four-team leagues, or the top three in five- and six-team leagues. Some at-large berths for non-automatic qualifiers will be available, the number of which will vary by division.
Those HSratings.com rankings, based solely on current-season results, will be used by CIF-SS to place teams into playoff divisions and seed them.
There could be first-round games putting two league champions together. Last year, Bravo League champion San Juan Hills played Citrus Belt League champ Beaumont in the first round.
Let’s take a look at what we likely will see. Keep in mind that the following was written Thursday afternoon, before any games were played this week, the final week of the regular season. That’s a great excuse if anything published here is wrong, and you best believe I am not above using it.
• Division 1 is shaping up to be an eight-team division. There is a large gap from the section’s No. 8 team, which will be either Servite or Orange Lutheran (they play each other Friday), to the section’s No. 9 team — likely Murrieta Valley, Chaparral or Vista Murrieta.
• Division 1 would have a first-round bye, then play its first games Nov. 14. Those games look to be Orange Lutheran or Servite at St. John Bosco, Orange Lutheran or Servite at Sierra Canyon, Santa Margarita at Corona Centennial and Mission Viejo vs. Mater Dei at Santa Ana Stadium.
• The other 13 divisions will have 16-team brackets.
• Division 2’s Orange County teams will likely be Corona del Mar, Crean Lutheran, JSerra, Los Alamitos, San Clemente, San Juan Hills and Tustin. JSerra seems a sure thing to finish sixth in the six-team Trinity League with a 0-5 league record, which is not terrible given that the Trinity League is regarded as the best football league in the U.S. JSerra could be shut out if Division 2 has an abundance of automatic qualifiers filling the 16-team bracket, leaving only a couple of at-large berths that would go to at-large candidates with overall records better than what probably will be JSerra’s 3-7 overall record.
• JSerra’s at-large candidacy was boosted by Norco having to forfeit six games this week. Norco at best is going to be 1-9, and a 1-9 team is not going to be ahead of a 3-7 team in the at-large selection process.
• In Division 3, it will be interesting to see if Edison gets in as an at-large team. An Edison win over San Clemente on Friday would help.
• Even without Edison, some very good Orange County teams will be in Division 3, including Capistrano Valley, Dana Hills, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach and Yorba Linda.
• La Habra is going to be in Division 4 and should do well there. Same for Troy in Division 5. Western should get into the Division 5 group as an at-large team.
• Also interesting to monitor Sunday: the first-round matchups for Pacifica in Division 10 and Saddleback in Division 13. A Rancho Alamitos-Saddleback game in Division 13 would be a good one.
• Some good teams are going to be placed into divisions without enough at-large berths to get those teams into the playoffs. That happens every year, regardless of what system is being used for the CIF-SS football playoffs.
NOTES
• The football stadiums at Saddleback College and Mt. San Antonio College would seem to be ideal venues for CIF-SS football finals. But because of a CIF-SS requirement that the same number of seats be located on both sides of the field, the football finals cannot be played there. The Rose Bowl is the site of this season’s Division 1 final. …
• Orange Lutheran and JSerra played against each other in two outstanding Trinity League flag football games, including JSerra’s 21-20 win over the Lancers on Oct. 9 that gave the Lions the league championship. They could meet again in the CIF-SS Division 1 final on Nov. 8 at El Modena High if JSerra beats Dos Pueblos and Orange Lutheran beats Huntington Beach in the semifinals Saturday. …
• The CIF-SS girls golf championships Monday and Tuesday has at-large teams seeded No. 1 in three divisions – Orange Lutheran in Division 1, Aliso Niguel in Division 2 and JSerra in Division 3. Last spring, Servite’s golf team could not play in the CIF-SS boys golf team championships because at the time no division’s top team could be on top of a division. The CIF-SS golf advisory committee deleted that rule before this school year. …
• The CIF-SS girls volleyball semifinals are Saturday, including Mater Dei at San Juan Hills in Division 1. Four CIF-SS division finals will be played at Cerritos College on Nov. 8. …
• Another CIF-SS girls volleyball semifinal Saturday that has two Orange County teams playing is Cypress at St. Margaret’s in Division 3. Cypress beat St. Margaret’s in five sets in August. …
• Mission Viejo’s football team added two transfers to its football roster this week, linemen Amaziah Siale (6-7, 330), a junior from Kapa’a in Hawaii, and freshman Hansen Makaafi (6-0, 250) from Bishop Montgomery. Bishop Montgomery had to shut down its varsity team earlier this season because of many problems with ineligible transfers and more. It’s great that athletes from Bishop Montgomery are given the opportunity to play if what happened at Bishop Montgomery was not their doing, but it could be rough for a player who might lose his position to the late arrival.
