Time to fix broken CIF Open Division state championship game
CIF: SAD STATE OF OPEN DIVISION
There is a lot of good about high school football in California and plenty that is not so good. Nothing we write here is going to magically solve the issues.
But there is one matter that California Interscholastic Federation officials should start addressing now. It's the same one that should have been dealt with after last season.
The Open Division state championship game is broken. Can someone fix it?
This is a game that should be a celebration for CIF, the Super Bowl of California high school football, the biggest game between the two best teams.
Instead, it has become a sad letdown with no sign of letting up.
Private schools have advantages, yes. They do across the state. But Mater Dei and St. John Bosco are not normal private-school powers in football. Haven't been for approaching a decade.
They are closer to Florida's IMG Academy than traditional private-school powers. CIF schools are not allowed to play IMG because it doesn't play by the same rules.
Hard to imagine IMG having more talent than Mater Dei this season or Bosco last season.
The Southern California superpowers have risen to the top by a sizeable margin because they have become all-star teams, with players not just from Socal but other parts of the state and beyond.
After Mater Dei beat Serra 35-0 for the Open title on Dec. 9 a couple of standouts from the San Mateo school posed for a picture with a couple of Mater Dei players, including a fourstar running back who scored a
touchdown in the game. Why?
Because they're all from the Bay Area.
Last year, a receiver for Bosco had transferred from Pittsburg.
Yes, other high schools can jump into the game of filling roster spots with transfers and becoming superpowers, too. Revisions to CIF bylaws starting in 2012 have made it easier to gain eligibility.
But is the transfer game really what education-based athletics should be about?
Should a team like Serra have to go completely unconventional on offense just to make sure the score stays somewhat competitive?
Let's be clear. Blowouts happen in high school sports, with or without transfers. They happen plenty in the Bay Area. Serra's dominance this season was well documented. But Serra's roster isn't loaded with guys
committed to Alabama, Georgia, Texas and so on. Its league MVP is going to San Jose State.
Serra is an exceptionally good private-school team that, even as its own coach has said, should be playing other private schools in the playoffs.
It isn't a national superpower. But because of its success in the North the past three seasons, it has had to play teams far above its weight class in what should be the premier game.
The result: Three consecutive running-clock losses on the CIF'S big stage.
When is enough enough? Do state games have to always be North vs. South? Should the Bosco-mater Dei Southern Section title game also be for the Open Division state championship? Should the Bosco-mater Dei winner move on to some sort of national championship game? What about tightening and enforcing transfer rules?
Or letting Bosco and Mater Dei play a rubber match? Don't they always split their two games every season?
Anything would be better than what is happening now.
— Darren Sabedra
SERRA COACH'S THOUGHTS ON SITUATION
Serra's ticket to the Open Division state title game the past two years was all but punched when it beat Folsom and De La Salle to begin both seasons.
The Padres will start against those teams again next year, followed by St. John Bosco.
Coach Patrick Walsh was asked whether it would be more attractive not to be No. 1 in Norcal and play a state game in a more competitive division. He said no.
“Listen, when we line up in a game and we have an opportunity to play another team, we're going to play to win,” Walsh said. “If the outcome is this (blowout Open loss), then so be it. That's the system that we're in. Some like it. Some don't. I'll tell you what, I am not in charge of it.
“I guess the alternative would be to throw a game or to lose a game. That's not in our DNA. We can't do that. Watching Folsom, we beat Folsom. They won a state championship. What does that mean? Let people decide that on their own. For us, we have nothing to be ashamed of. For me, this is all about my kids and their hearts in that locker room. I want to make sure that everybody knows, those kids in there know, they didn't let anybody down.”
— Darren Sabedra
ACALANES, THE BREAKTHROUGH TEAM
When Acalanes stepped onto the Saddleback College field Dec. 9 to face Southern California Division 3-AA champion Birmingham of Lake Balboa, the odds were stacked against the Bay Area school.
No team from the North had won a state championship at the venue since the CIF moved its upper-division title games there in 2021.
The winless streak reached 12 games when Grant-sacramento and De La Salle lost on Dec. 8.
But these Dons were a determined bunch, a group led by veteran coach Floyd Burnsed — 76 years young — gritty quarterback Sully Bailey, speedy receivers Trevor Rogers and Paul Kuhner and so many others.
They broke through for the North, rallying from 14 down to beat Birmingham 35-23.
Kuhner clinched the win with a TD catch in the final minute.
“It's a coin toss a lot of times,” Kuhner said. “Our coach said it's not luck, it's falling back on preparation. We just prepared this week and we went out and got the win.”
Acalanes will lose Bailey, Rogers, Kuhner and others to graduation. But its coach said the future is bright for the Lafayette school — and he wants to keep going.
“We've got some great young players,” Burnsed said. “Our freshman team was 10-0 this year, beat everybody by about 40 points or more. We have a lot of good players coming up. I think we're keeping the players now. When they come out of eighth grade going into ninth, they can go wherever they want. We're getting those players to come to Acalanes.
“This is going to really help, all the publicity we've had. We've been in the paper every week. I think this is going to really help our program.”