 Orange County's playoff participants include (clockwise from top left) Tesoro, Servite, Foothill and Laguna Hills. ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER FILE PHOTOS |
Release of CIF football pairings ends guessing
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A father-son showdown leads the intriguing first-round matchups.
LOS ALAMITOS- Either the head coach does it, or one or two assistant coaches, or the entire group of coaches gets involved.
There is someone on every Orange County high school football coaching staff who plays the predict-the-bracket game. A lot of coaches tried to guess exactly how the CIF-Southern Section football playoff brackets would look before they were released Sunday.
How did you do, coach, playing the predict-the-bracket game?
"I don't play it," San Clemente coach Eric Patton said, "but a lot of our assistant coaches do."
"I'm not smart enough to do it," La Habra coach Frank Mazzotta said.
"Every year," Servite coach Troy Thomas said, "I've been wrong. So I quit guessing this year."
Everyone stopped guessing Sunday when brackets for the CIF-Southern Section's 13 football playoff divisions were released.
And one of the most interesting first-round games is Los Alamitos vs. Tesoro, father vs. son, in the Pac-5 Division. John Barnes is the coach at Los Alamitos, and son Brian Barnes is the coach at Tesoro. They have not coached against each other outside of summer passing league competition.
Both Barneses thought Los Alamitos-Tesoro was possible.
"My first thought," John Barnes said, "was I don't want to do this. But then I thought, when it's over, at least one of the Barneses will still be playing. It's not John vs. Brian anyway, because he's going to want his kids to win and I'm gong to want our kids to win."
Said Brian Barnes: "We'll see who gets the rights to second helpings at Thanksgiving."
There are Orange County teams in five divisions: the East Valley; Northeast; Pac-5; Southern; and Southwest divisions.
Four county teams are seeded No. 1: St. Margaret's in the East Valley Division; Saddleback Valley Christian in the Northeast; Laguna Hills in the Southern; and Foothill in the Southwest.
Most first-round games will be played Friday. Because some playoff teams use the same stadiums as home fields, some games will be played on Thursday and others on Saturday. For example, Bradford Stadium, at Valencia High, will have El Dorado there on Thursday, Esperanza there on Friday, and Valencia there on Saturday.
Preceding the release of brackets was an announcement of which teams qualified for at-large berths. Two county teams, Dana Hills and Edison, were eligible for the Pac-5 at-large berth, as was St. John Bosco of Bellflower. The Serra League's Bishop Amat of La Puente got it, edging out Edison of the Sunset League, based mostly on two factors: strength of schedule (Bishop Amat opponents were a cumulative 61-39, and Edison's opponents were 57-42) and the playoff committee's assessment that the Serra League was stronger overall than the Sunset.
Teams automatically qualify for the playoffs if the finish second or higher in a four-team league (like the Serra), third or higher in a five- or six-team league, or fourth or higher in a seven- or eight-team league. Other teams are eligible for at-large consideration if their overall record is .500 or better.
Anaheim got the at-large berth in the Southwest Division, and was the only non-automatic qualifier in the division that was .500 or better. There is no at-large berth in the Southern Division. Non-county teams got at-large berths in the East Valley and Northeast divisions.
The Southwest Division is an all-Orange County division. Besides No. 1 Foothill, the other seeded teams are No. 2 La Habra, No. 3 Western, and No. 4 Fullerton. La Habra won the Southeast Division championship last season, when it beat Fullerton in the Southeast final.
El Dorado won the Southwest championship last year and in 2006.
Segerstrom is in the playoffs for the first time in its three years of varsity football. The Jaguars (6-4) will play Los Amigos (5-5) in the Southern Division first round.
Four county teams take undefeated records into the playoffs: Laguna Hills; Saddleback Valley Christian; St. Margaret's; and Tesoro. Laguna Hills is 9-0, the others are 10-0.
CIF-SS assistant commissioner Rob Wigod, in charge of the section's management of football, said putting together the brackets was not too challenging.
"All the craziness took place at the league level," said Wigod, referring to logjams like the Sunset League's five-way tie. "Once the leagues forwarded their information to us, it was not that difficult."
CIF-Southern Section rankings were greatly responsible for the rankings of the top four seeds. Once those seeds are in place on the brackets, bracket-making rules, like keeping teams from the same league away from each other until the semifinal round at the earliest, are followed.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
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