North Shore vs. Mater Dei is fun topic to debate
If you need proof of how ardent Texans are about defending their high school football, there were people spending the Christmas holiday doing just that on social media, specifically against Californians.
A debate over high school football’s national champion will do that.
After winning the Class 6A Division I state championship at 16-0, North Shore was named MaxPreps’ national champion, finishing No. 1 in its Xcellent 25 rankings.
California Open Division state champion Mater Dei finished second in MaxPreps’ rankings but is USA TODAY’s national champion atop its Super 25 rankings at 13-2.
Yes, it’s a mythical title that is determined subjectively. Yes, it is much better to take credence in what happens on the field instead of speculate.
Nobody seems to care. But this is still fun to debate.
The two media outlets crowning North Shore and Mater Dei national champions turned Twitter into a showdown between Texas and California.
Texans believe few people do anything in life better than they do high school football.
Californians tire of hearing about cathedrals disguised as high school football stadiums or state semifinals outdrawing college bowl games.
They believe the true kings of high school football reside on the left coast.
Zack Poff, national football editor for MaxPreps, says the fervent debate was truly the best thing about this year’s ranking. And considering MaxPreps is based out of California, anguish from Mater Dei supporters didn’t have to travel far.
Poff is in charge of the Xcellent 25 rankings and said it was difficult choosing between North Shore and Mater Dei.
He gave more weight to North Shore’s résumé, which includes 15 double-digit wins out 16 total games.
North Shore beat eight teams with at least 10 wins, and three of those teams — Lake Travis, West Brook and Duncanville — won at least 13.
“At the end of the day, I always said whoever won the Texas 6A Division I bracket would have a chance to be national champion at the end of the year,” Poff said. “Because that team, whether it was Allen, Duncanville or North Shore, would be 16-0, no losses and winning that Texas 6A Division I bracket I feel is the toughest in all of high school football to win.”
That playoff bracket is tough, but the rebuttal is that Mater Dei’s entire schedule is the toughest in the country.
It’s a schedule that includes a win over vaunted IMG Academy and Bishop Gorman.
That’s part of what David Scott, high school sports executive producer with USA TODAY Sports Media Group, says pushed Mater Dei ahead in its rankings.
USA TODAY’s rankings used to be handled by one man, similar to how MaxPreps does its list now, but today its more of an informal collaborative effort between the publication’s high school writers and producers.
Scott knows people see the two in Mater Dei’s loss column and wonder how that makes for a national champion.
One of those losses is a forfeiture of a 42-14 win over Bishop Amat because of an ineligible player seeing game time. The matter was self-reported.
The other loss came to St. John Bosco in October, but the 41-18 defeat was avenged with a 17-13 win in November’s postseason.
Speaking of the postseason, Mater Dei finished it with wins over Centennial, St. John Bosco and De La Salle. All three of those teams, along with IMG Academy, show up in both MaxPreps and USA TODAY’s final national rankings.
“At the end, it’s really a 1A and a 1B,” Scott said. “We don’t look at Mater Dei as a decisive, nodoubt-about-it national champion. We just think they deserved it with their résumé.”
The debate naturally turned into people clamoring for Mater Dei and North Shore to settle it on the field. We’d all pay to see it. It’s not happening.
North Shore coach Jon Kay says the program has resisted playing private schools, and that philosophy has been in place going back to Ed Warken’s tenure as the district’s athletics director.
There were an estimated 31 players with Division I offers playing in the North Shore-Duncanville game and possibly more who will play college football one day.
Would there be more in a Mater Dei-North Shore showdown?
It’s not a foreign concept for private schools — which Mater Dei is for those unfamiliar — to play Texas public schools. Bishop Gorman was just in Texas to play Cedar Hill in 2016. De La Salle was in Texas to play Euless Trinity the year prior.
It’s apples to oranges. Some may wonder why Texas public schools don’t travel out of state as much. Budgets matter. Some of it is scheduling. Subvarsity teams are often forgotten about in these debates.
Schedules are mostly made every two years during realignment in Texas, too. Those nondistrict dates are often set for two years. Katy and North Shore will play again next season, for example.
Texas high school football is also an insular fraternity. Why Mater Dei when Katy and Westfield are around the corner?
“We can go down the street and play Katy,” Kay said. “We can go up (Highway I-45) and play Duncanville. We’ve played Euless Trinity. We’ve played Southlake Carroll. There’s too many great football teams in the state of Texas. At the end of the day, we’re going to support public schools playing public schools.”
Kay said the national title is much appreciated, but it’s difficult to call a public school-private school clash equitable. One is able to gather players from all over and play a national schedule in some cases. The other should be a reflection of the community it serves.
Kay, who is from Michigan, believes Texas has it right and there is value in coaching in a state that prioritizes public school football as much as it does.
To him, there is enough validation in winning the Class 6A Division I bracket.
But he’ll continue to hear about North Shore vs. Mater Dei. And it’ll still be fair to question, what if ?