Ready for some more football?

The football season might be a bit longer in 2010.

Are you ready for a 16-game season? And a couple dozen games in August?

A proposal will go to the CIF State Federated Council next month that would create a two-week state football playoff system beginning with the 2010 season. The system would include a regionals round in four divisions, much like in boys and girls basketball, with regionals champions from Northern and Southern California meeting in state championship finals over two days. The state council will vote on the proposal May 8.

CIF section commissioners would comprise the selection committee to identify regionals teams.

The addition of a week of regionals football would make it a 16-week season for teams that get to the state finals.

That means CIF-Southern Section football playoffs in 2010 would have to conclude on Dec. 4 of that year. An examination of the 2010 calendar shows that the regular season would have to finish by Nov. 6, and Week 0 games would be held Aug. 26-28. With more teams scheduling Week 0 games these days, which gives teams a bye week later in the regular season, there will be more high school football games in August than ever before.

Following how these scheduling dominoes would fall in 2010, teams that play Week 0 games would start official practices on Aug. 9 if they follow the traditional pattern. It could be a few days earlier if they want to break up or customize, with the CIF-SS office's permission, the maximum 25 practice opportunities allowed before a team's first game.

The proposal likely will pass, as the state championships have been well-organized and popular, and a regionals round would be entertaining, too. The way this is going, though, one day grandchildren will ask, "Grandpa, tell us that story again about how summer vacation used to be longer than winter vacation in your day."

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:

•The CIF-SS office on Thursday issued a memo to its member schools' athletic directors and baseball coaches on the use of altered bats, specifically bats that have been "shaved" or "rolled" to increase bat performance. Use of an altered is illegal under interscholastic rules. "Altering a bat is cheating," the memo states.

•The county's small schools had a smooth releaguing experience. The only change: Capistrano Valley Christian will move to the Western Athletic Conference, composed of Express and San Joaquin league schools, with Crean Lutheran taking CVC's place in the Academy League for all sports starting with a four-year cycle beginning with the 2010-11 school year. Already, Crean Lutheran is moving for the 2009 season into the Academy League only for football, replacing CVC, which will downsize to an 8-man football program.

•There were 57 freshman transfers in the CIF-Southern Section in March. Student-athletes can make one transfer during their freshman year without having change residence. After the freshman year, student-athletes have to make a residence change to retain athletic eligibility, unless a hardship waiver is secured.

•Because of scheduling conflicts with the Arco Arena in Sacramento, the CIF State Basketball Championships will be in Bakersfield next year, and will return to Sacramento in 2011.

•It's not too early to start thinking about county athlete of year candidates. La Habra has one - Randal Nygren, an outstanding quarterback on the Highlanders' CIF championship football team, and a starter on their good basketball and baseball teams.

•Of the two county basketball players of the year who have been included among calhisports.com's finalists for state players of the year, it would seem that Foothill's Christina Marinacci has a better chance of getting state girls player of the year then Mater Dei's David Wear has of being state boys player of the year. The guess here is that the boys player of the year will be Kawhi Leonard of M.L. King of Riverside, with St. Mary's of Stockton's Chelsea Gray getting the girls honor.

•People call and e-mail enough, inquiring about this that it's probably good to repeat it now: There are 573 schools in the CIF-Southern Section, from as far north as Lee Vining to as far south as San Clemente. School sizes vary greatly; in this county alone, CIF-SS members go from 16-students Padre Pio Academy to 4,000-students Santa Ana.

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com