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[Update: As of Thursday afternoon, the vote stands at 63-57 against the proposal with 19 votes undeclared. The San Francisco Section, with its two votes, confirmed Thursday that it voted to support the measure.]

LONG BEACH — The CIF-Southern Section Council voted Wednesday against a proposal that would expand the CIF State football playoffs to 51 teams and more than double the number of championship games.

The Southern Section, which includes all of Orange County and most of Southern California, is one of 10 sections that comprises the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation), so there is still a chance the proposal will be approved in voting that will be done this weekend at the CIF State Federated Council meeting in San Jose.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the voting was 63-55 against the proposal with 21 votes undeclared. The proposal needs 69 votes to pass.

Under the current format, 18 teams are selected by a committee to participate in the two-round CIF State playoffs system, which includes one regional round and five state championship bowl games.

The CIF proposal would give a spot in the CIF State playoffs to every team that wins a section championship, and it would create an estimated 13 state championship bowl games.

The Southern Section Council, which is made up of league representatives, voted 61-16 against the proposal with four abstentions.

Representatives of the 10 CIF’s sections will cast their official votes Friday and Saturday. Each section is given a number of votes based on its size. The Southern Section has the most votes, 36.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the proposal had 55 votes of approval from four sections – L.A. City (14), San Diego (12), Sac-Joaquin (18) and Central (11). There were 63 votes opposed to it from three sections – Southern (36), North Coast (14) and Central Coast (13).

The other votes will be cast by three sections – Northern (5), Oakland (2) and San Francisco (2) – plus a list of 12 individuals who are representatives for education and coaches associations.

Newport Harbor athletic director Mike Zimmerman is the Sunset League’s CIF-SS Council representative. As directed by his league membership, Zimmerman voted against the football playoffs proposal.

“We’ve limited the amount of contact and the number of hours in football practices,” Zimmerman said, “yet we’re expanding the playoffs and the number of games that will be played. To us, that sends a contradictory message.

“And the smaller sections would get their section champions going to the state football playoffs when some of them are not better than teams in the bigger sections that get eliminated in the first or second rounds of their playoffs.”

Also Wednesday, the CIF-SS Council voted to support a state proposal that would require baseball and softball base coaches to wear helmets.

The CIF-SS Council received first readings of section proposals that will be up for vote at its next session in April.

Among them were establishing set dates for the start of football practices in August; changing the manner in which the number of a team’s regular-season games are counted; establishing sand volleyball as a sport separate from indoor volleyball so playing sand volleyball would not be a violation of CIF-SS rules on outside competition during the season of sport; and barring high school volleyball players from participating in tryouts or player evaluations for club or other non-high school teams during the season of sport.

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com