The CIF State football playoffs will expand to 51 teams next season.
The CIF State Federated Council, which makes and amends the high school rules and regulations in California, voted Friday to support a proposal that will give a spot in the state playoffs to every team that wins a division championship. Under the current system, a committee selected the teams for the playoffs.
This season, there were 18 teams in the state playoffs with five bowl championship games. In the new format, the number of teams participating will soar to 51 with the potential for 13 bowl games that will likely be played throughout the state.
The proposal needed 69 votes for passage. It got 71 “yes’ votes. There were 64 “no” votes.
The Southern Section, which includes high schools in Orange County and much of Southern California, voted against the proposal, with safety concerns being a common explanation for objection. The Southern is the largest of the 10 sections in the CIF State organization.
The proposal includes a provision that allows teams that do not wish to participate in the state playoffs to request to be left out of them. The teams must state their request before the second week of their section playoffs.
The Southern Section has 13 division championships in 11-man football.
This past season, Orange County had four teams that won division championships – Garden Grove, Mission Viejo, St. Margaret’s and Trabuco Hills – but only one of those teams, St. Margaret’s, was selected to participate in the state playoffs.
Under the new format, all four teams would have automatically earned a place in the two-round playoff system, which starts with a regional round.
Garden Grove coach Ricardo Cepeda said his team was disappointed it wasn’t included in this year’s playoffs after it won the Southern Division championship. But he expressed mixed feelings Friday about the new format because of the extra games and practices it will mean for the teams participating.
Teams that reach the regional round will play 15 games, and teams that go on to the bowl games will play 16, which matches the length of the NFL regular season.
“This year would have been great to go to state because we were really healthy,” Cepeda said. “But then, with 15 games, you’ve gone through a grind, and if you have guys injured there’s a safety issue, for sure.
“But to get to play another game, that would have been a great experience for the kids, and we’d be ready for it.”
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
