Fryer's Week 4 football notes

This week's schedule has Tesoro-El Dorado (Thursday) and Los Alamitos-La Habra (Friday). Those games prove either how wide apart the better top- and mid-division teams are, or how close they are. The thinking here, based on years of first-hand observation, is that there is a vast difference. Teams that take on the high-division foe deserve a great deal of respect. Here are three games I want to see this year, but it's a pity they are not on the schedule:

Mater Dei-Mission Viejo - Quarterbacks Matt Barkley vs. Allan Bridgford, private school vs. public school, etc.

Los Alamitos-Servite - Ever since Los Al coach John Barnes did his acceptance/rejection bit on the Servite coaching job in 2005, Servite folks have been thirsting for this one.

JSerra-St. Margaret's - Two rising programs; evidence suggests JSerra is rising faster.

"We hope," JSerra coach Jim Hartigan said, in August, "that people can say at the end of the season that JSerra sure has gotten better." The Lions are 3-0 and have beaten teams that probably would have beaten or even dominated them two or three years ago, Huntington Beach, Saddleback and El Modena. They are likely to go 0-5 in the Trinity League, but Hartigan is going to be right.

Sometimes, schools keep their football teams as 11-man programs when they just don't have the resources to do so. A few years ago, it was written here that even the annually struggling public school programs like La Quinta should give some tough to going to 8-man football, which is a high-scoring and entertaining version. Of course, that flipped out some people for whom La Quinta's current 27-game losing streak is not sufficient proof. Liberty Christian played 11-man football for a couple of years, but after an 11-man record of 1-8 last year, when the Minutemen gave up 46 points a game and endured a 92-6 loss to Capistrano valley Christian, Liberty went back to 8-man ball. The results, so far: a 2-1 record, including a 46-32 victory over Price of Los Angeles last week when quarterback Sam Salgado rushed for 215 yards and four touchdowns. More administrators of schools private and public should swallow their pride and give their kids a chance to be competitive.

LOARA, LOOKING GOOD

The Saxons have most-recent above-.500 record was in 2000, and they since have gone 15-51 with 0-10 records in 2002 and '06. Loara is off to a 3-0 start this season, and have two challenging games left on the nonleague schedule, against other city of Anaheim schools: Anaheim this week, Magnolia next week. The Saxons' Anthony Bautista is averaging 124 rushing yards a game, and quarterback Marcus Meraz has completed 61 percent of his passes. And they are winning with one of the Lappins, the first family of Loara athletics, as coach -- Dean Lappin, in his third year running the program.

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com