San Juan Hills forfeited nine games and knocked JSerra out of the CIF Southern Section football playoffs.
Of course, that requires explanation.
San Juan Hills was set to be an automatic qualifier for the playoffs. The Stallions clinched a playoff berth on Oct. 24 with a Bravo League win over Villa Park. Their win over Tesoro this past Thursday gave them a share of the league championship, with Corona del Mar and Yorba Linda.
Then on Friday it was announced that San Juan Hills forfeited seven wins for using an ineligible player in those games. That dropped San Juan Hills to 1-4 in league and 1-9 overall, and took away San Juan Hills’ automatic-qualifier status. San Juan Hills could then make the playoffs only as an at-large team.
On Sunday, when CIF-SS playoff brackets were released, San Juan Hills did get one of the three at-large berths in Division 2. The other two went to Los Alamitos (8-2) and Vista Murrieta (7-3).
JSerra, last place in the mighty Trinity League with an 0-5 league record, was 3-7 overall. That’s better than San Juan Hills’ 1-9, but the HSratings.com rankings used to place teams into playoff divisions and seed them had Los Alamitos, Vista Murrieta and San Juan Hills rated higher than JSerra.
So JSerra is not in the playoffs.
The HSratings.com system does not demote teams’ ratings for forfeits.
Had San Juan Hills not forfeited the games and had not dropped into the at-large pool of candidates, JSerra very likely gets one of the three at-large berths.
JSerra’s announcement on Saturday that it has parted ways with its football coach Victor Santa Cruz, coming less than 18 hours after JSerra lost to Santa Margarita on Friday, seemed very sudden.
The timing makes sense now – JSerra folks looked at the ratings and the divisions and understood that their football team was not going to get an at-large berth. On Sunday, JSerra formally announced the move this way: “JSerra Catholic High School has made the decision to separate with head football coach Victor Santa Cruz, effective immediately … “
And not only is 1-9 San Juan Hills in the playoffs, the Stallions have a Division 2 first-round home game. They play Downey, 9-1 and champion of the Gateway League.
The fallout of the San Juan Hills forfeits also hit Corona del Mar.
If San Juan Hills was an automatic qualifier, thus creating the at-large opening that would have been filled by JSerra, then Corona del Mar would have been pushed down to the Division 3 group of teams. But with JSerra out of the playoff picture, Corona del Mar rose to the Division 2 group.
Instead of being seeded No. 1 in Division 3 and getting a first-round home game, Corona del Mar is the No. 16 team in Division 2 and plays at No. 1-seeded Murrieta Valley in the first round. That’s quite a change, from having a first-round home against a lesser opponent to playing an away game against the section’s No. 9 team.
Division 1 is correctly an eight-team division of elites.
The CIF-SS Football Coaches Advisory Committee unanimously recommended that all 14 playoff divisions be 16–team divisions.
That would have been a bad idea. A 16-team Division 1 would create a couple of one-sided first-round games, like 70-7 final scores. A couple of the division’s top teams would welcome that after five weeks of grueling league play, but let’s avoid humiliating the kids on the other team.
The CIF-SS office saw a natural break between the top eight teams and the next group of teams, so Division 1 is an eight-team division. It’s the right choice.
So Division 1 is: Trinity League co-champions Mater Dei (7-2), St. John Bosco (9-1) and Santa Margarita (7-3), Trinity No. 4 Servite (6-4) and No. 5 Orange Lutheran (4-6, including two forfeit losses), Mission League champion Sierra Canyon (10-0), Alpha League champion Mission Viejo (9-1) and Big West Upper League champ Corona Centennial (9-1).
In other divisions …
Division 2 has Yorba Linda vs. Los Alamitos at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach on Friday.
Huntington Beach vs. Edison on Friday in Division 3 brings back a longtime Sunset League rivalry. El Modena at La Habra in a Division 4 first-rounder Friday is a good county matchup. Orange vs. Troy on Friday at Fullerton Stadium in Division 5 could be a doozy.
The reveal of those matchups contributed to Sunday being an interesting day in Orange County high school football.
What dominated the day, though, was that a team that dropped to 1-9 because of forfeits not only got into the playoffs but also has a first-round home game, and how those forfeits impacted other teams including teams in other divisions.
CIF-SS member schools league representatives in January of 2024 voted 79-8 to approve the implementation of this system that uses current-season data only to construct playoff divisions.
Would they vote that way today, knowing what they know now?