California: Who is Going Bowling?

MaxPreps senior writers

Much like the BCS, California bowl’s system gets rocked by critics who claim that it doesn’t decide a true champion. 

The teams are handpicked out of 51 division winners from 10 different sections.

It’s an exhaustive process that stirs endless debate and that – proponents say – is a fantastic reason why it all works.

For the common California high school football fan, trying to unravel it all is sort of like detangling Christmas lights.

We know this: 10 Section commissioners will gather Sunday at the Home Depot Center in Carson, site of all five Division games Dec. 19-20. They will spend 2-4 hours attempting to pick the best Northern California representatives to face the best Southern California representatives.

The announcement of the picks will be Sunday at 3:30 p.m.

Here’s a division-by-division breakdown of how we see it shaking out.

Division 1/Open North

Scuttlebutt – It’s a fairly simple scenario but an impending painstaking decision. The winner of Friday’s North Coast Section Division I championship between De La Salle and Pittsburg will join Sac-Joaquin Section champion Grant (Sacramento) and Central Coast Section Open Division winner Bellarmine Prep (San Jose) in a three teams-for-two-spots pick ‘em that I wouldn’t want any part of. First off, as fantastic a season as Pittsburg has had and with oodles of Division I talent abound, it’s been 16 years – 16 years! – since any one from Northern California has defeated De La Salle. Then again, the last team to do it was Pittsburg. Our state rankings: 4. Bellarmine (12-1), 5. De La Salle (11-1), 7. Grant (13-0) and 10. Pittsburg (11-1). The losses: De La Salle to nationally-ranked Don Bosco Prep of New Jersey (23-21), Bellarmine lost to Serra (31-23), but then avenged the loss in the playoffs (25-7), Pittsburg lost to Monte Vista (32-29) in Week 2. Grant hasn’t lost has defeated a couple out-of-state powers and in its most competitive game, squeaked past a very strong Granite Bay team.   

Prognosis – De La Salle beats Pittsburg and to a surprise for most, gets the Division I spot, leaving the Open Division for Grant, which was voted out of a Bowl Game two years ago with perhaps its best team ever. Bellarmine, an absolute monster of a team, is out unless Pittsburg beats De La Salle. Not only does Grant get the nod on its merits, but there’s an underlying pressure, we think, not to pick two private schools. 

- Mitch Stephens

Scuttlebutt – This should all come down to Friday and Saturday in the Southern Section. The winners of Saturday’s Pac 5 championship game at Angels Stadium between upstart Tesoro (Rancho Santa Margarita) and perennial national juggernaut Long Beach Poly, and the Inland Division game, Centennial (Corona) at Chaparral (Temecula), will fill the Open and Division I slots. Our state rankings: 1. Tesoro (13-0), 2. Poly (13-0), 3. Centennial (13-0) and 17. Chaparral (12-1).

Prognosis — Poly squeaks out a defensive slugfest with Tesoro and earns the Open Division game based on a superior schedule to Centennial, which defeats Chaparral to get a rematch with De La Salle.

- Mitch Stephens

Scuttlebutt — It doesn’t get much more convoluted than this. The leaders in the clubhouse are SJS D3 champion and undefeated Casa Roble (Orangevale) and Northern Section power Paradise. But three other squads are favored to win their Section title games this weekend: a pair of SJS squads St. Mary’s (Stockton) and Whitney (Rocklin), and NCS’s Novato, the 2007 North state representative. If Encinal (Alameda), only a narrow underdogs, defeats Novato then it will be a very viable contender as well. That should create quite a cluster and leave poor SJS commissioner Pete Saco in quite a spot. He’ll have to hand pick the best SJS representative, no easy chore, which we think will be the likely North representative. Our rankings: 27. Paradise (11-1), 46. Casa Roble (13-0), 52. St. Mary’s (11-2), 74. Novato (11-2), 96. Whitney (12-0), 129. Encinal (12-0). St. Mary’s, which lost to D1 power Bellarmine 35-6 and D3 power Central Catholic 27-25,  can make a serious case with a win in the D1 title game against Pleasant Grove. It has played the toughest schedule in the group.  

Prognosis – A St. Mary’s win or loss won’t matter we don’t think. It will come down to Casa Roble and Paradise and we think SJS’s overall strength gives the nod to Casa Roble.

- Mitch Stephens

Scuttlebutt – This one too should be fairly cut and decided Saturday at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium in two different games. In the D3 championship game at 1 p.m., Cathedral Catholic (12-0) should prevail over Valhalla and at 4:30 p.m., Oceanside (11-0-1) is a touchdown favorite over Helix in the D2 title game. If both prevail, Cathedral likely gets the nod and if only Oceanside prevails it will likely represent Southern California in D2 for the second straight year. The third very viable squad in the mix is Southern Section’s Moorpark, which could leapfrog over both teams with a win over nationally ranked St. Bonaventure in the North Division finals. Our rankings: 14. Cathedral, 18. Moorpark (12-1), 19. Oceanside.

Prognosis – Cathedral rolls Valhalla and is selected. The only monkey wrench here is if Moorpark upends defending D3 state champ St. Bonaventure, then the discussion gets very lengthy. If that occurs, then we think Moorpark gets picked. 

- Mitch Stephens

Scuttlebutt - If everything goes according to seed, then the selection for the Division 3 NorCal bowl berth is a no-brainer. Cardinal Newman is undefeated and has beaten two of the north state’s best candidates for the bowl – Central Catholic and Palma – although both the Raiders and Chieftains are not eligible for the bowl games because they lost in their section playoffs.

The Cardinals have also moved up in competition for the North Coast Section playoffs, which should set well in the committee’s eyes, and received the top seed. Cardinal Newman is also favored to defeat Clayton Valley, which is also undefeated, in the Division 2 final Friday night in Santa Rosa.

Clayton Valley won’t go down quietly, however. Coached by Herc Pardi, who knows a thing or two about pulling off big upsets, Clayton Valley does not qualify for the Division 3 bowl and is actually a Division 1 team in the state playoff system. Pardi once coached at Pittsburg, where his Pirates handed De La Salle its last North Coast Section playoff loss in 1991.

Should Cardinal Newman lose, then the situation gets a little hairy. Sutter has qualified with a championship in the Northern Section while Hilmar pulled off the monumental upset in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division 5 playoffs with a victory over Central Catholic. The Raiders had won 11 straight Sac-Joaquin Section championships before falling to the Yellowjackets.

The only other qualifier is Justin-Siena, which upset top-seeded Ferndale in the semifinals and then topped Salesian for the North Coast Section Division 4 championship.

Prognosis – Cardinal Newman will be the pick if it wins. If the Cardinals fall, look for Hilmar, due to its 12-1 record and its ability to avenge its only loss by beating Central Catholic, to emerge as the next candidate.

- Kevin Askeland

Scuttlebutt – St. Bonaventure and Oaks Christian have bounced back and forth as the favorites in this class for most of the season. CalPreps has had one or the other ranked as the favorite for Division 3 while Cal-Hi Sports has had the Seraphs in the top spot for most of the season.

St. Bonaventure is 12-1 with a loss to potential Pac-5 champion Long Beach Poly. The Lions are undefeated at 13-0, but has played a slightly less taxing schedule than the Seraphs. Both St. Bonaventure and Oaks Christian play solid opponents in the finals. The Seraphs must get past a Moorpark team that is 12-1 with a loss to Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks. A Moorpark win over St. Bonaventure and the Musketeers might have a shot at a Division 2 bowl berth. Meanwhile Oaks Christian takes on undefeated Serra (13-0).

Out of the Central Section, Bakersfield Christian and Corcoran meet for the Division 5 title. Bakersfield Christian has already lost to Oaks Christian this year, so that head-to-head matchup will come into play should BC and Oaks Christian both win. Corcoran is undefeated, but has a considerably weaker schedule than either St. Bonaventure, Oaks Christian or Serra.

Prognosis – If the Seraphs win, they are the choice, especially if Long Beach Poly also wins. Oaks Christian would have to have an impressive win over Serra in order to leapfrog the Seraphs.

- Kevin Askeland

Small Schools North

Scuttlebutt – Ferndale looked like the odds-on favorite in this division until the Wildcats were knocked off by Justin-Siena in the North Coast Section Division 4 playoffs. Justin-Siena does not qualify for the Small Schools division, leaving the North Coast Section with only one candidate – St. Vincent of Petaluma.

The Sac-Joaquin Section also has just one candidate in Bradshaw Christian, which knocked off Vacaville Christian in the Division 7 championship game in the final seconds.

The Northern Section, meanwhile, has two strong contenders in Hamilton of Hamilton City and Modoc of Alturas. Hamilton (10-2) is a two-time Northern Section Division 3 section champion while Modoc was 12-0 and won the smaller Division 4 section title. Fall River, which also won a Northern Section championship, qualifies but will likely not be selected since it has a head-to-head loss with Modoc.

Prognosis – St. Vincent is the most recent team to finish playing, having won a section title last week while Hamilton and Modoc finished up prior to Thanksgiving. Out of the three teams, Hamilton played in the toughest playoff division while Modoc had the best overall record. This might be the best place for the Northern Section to get a bowl berth, so look for the commissioners to try and make a choice between Hamilton and Modoc.

- Kevin Askeland

Scuttlebutt – The two leading contenders are Francis Parker of the San Diego Section and St. Margaret’s of the Southern Section. Parker has been devastating in the playoffs, whipping Calvin Christian 76-3 and Army-Navy 63-7.

The Army-Navy win could prove to be the clincher. St. Margaret’s, which is undefeated with 41 straight wins, also played Army-Navy and won 41-0. While the CIF downplays the role of margin of victory in deciding teams for the bowls, expect that the big win by Parker will have some sort of small psychological effect.

Both teams have fairly tough opponents in the finals. Parker takes on Bishop’s, a team it beat by just eight points (31-23) early in the season. Meanwhile St. Margaret’s takes on a 29 Palms team led by all-state performer Montreal Harris.

Prognosis – If both Parker and St. Margaret’s win, look for Parker to get the nod due to a slightly tougher schedule.

- Kevin Askeland