A couple of years ago, I wrote an essay arguing that the "State Championship" games are a really bad idea. My central thesis was that you will see a significant migration of the most talented kids from one school to another team that the kids perceive will get them in the state game, much as you currently see in basketball.

This season seems to have validated my point. The most obvious case, of course, is the transfer of Darrell Scott from Moorpark to St. Bonaventure. Why the move? He was a starter on a run-oriented team that made it to the Division final the last two seasons. Apparently, loyalty doesn't hold a candle to the opportunity to go to a school that has a very good chance of going to the State game. Xavier Johnson, a starter at Taft the last two seasons, jumped ship to Birmingham, a team in need of a quarterback and clearly headed for another City Section title and possibly the state game. Then, of course, there were the kids that showed up at Canyon last season from Bakersfield and Golden Valley, the former three or four games into the season and who clearly made the difference between Canyon being able to say "State Champ" or being relegated to also ran. Undoubtedly, there are several others that I've missed.

Now I have a lot of new issues with the whole setup, especially the politics.

First, there is the distribution of teams and players. While there are only four sections in the South [Central, Southern, Los Angeles and San Diego], about 58% of the teams are in the South and, if I did the math right, over 70% of the students. In other words, it's ultimately far easier to make it to the state game if you live in the North rather than the South. To me the obvious solution would be to move the Central Section to the North and possibly put the Pac 7 league in the Central Section at which point you would have a fairly equitably distribution of teams, if not students.

Second, there is the voting process. There are ten sections in the state with six in the North and four in the South. Sound unfair? It's worse than you think. All ten section commissioners get one vote in selecting all the teams from the north and the south. The CIF Southern Section Commissioner represents well over 500 teams and schools. The CIF Oakland Section has six -- count -- six teams. The San Francisco Section has seven teams. The Oakland Section Commissioner, representing roughly 1/90th the number of schools has the EXACT same voting impact as the Southern Section Commissioner. This seems blatantly unfair on it's face.

Third, the opportunities for shenanigans are rampant. What if the six commissioners up north decide they'd like to see their boys win this season after all three teams lost last year? There are plenty of weak sisters in the South who meet the basic selection criteria and the six votes up North would trump the four votes down South. In short, the North can create just about any matchup it wants. Or let's say the LA Commissioner is miffed because she thinks her favorite has been overlooked. It wouldn't take too much convincing of the folks from San Diego and the Central Section to select, lets say, Bakersfield over Centennial. Don't forget, the votes are secret. Last season, Oaks Christian and O-Lu were easy, obvious choices in the South. But what about Canyon? There were a lot of reasoned arguments one could make that JW North, Birmingham, Dominguez, Carlsbad, Clovis East or even Norco should have been selected.

Third, there is the criteria for selection:

* Won - Loss Record (Preseason - League - Section Playoffs)
* Strength of Schedule (Preseason - League - Section Playoffs)
* Head to Head Competition
* Common Opponents

* Special Note: Point differential in final scores will not be considered in the selection process. Media input and computerized rankings will only be used as a guide in the selection process.


On it's face, this list is reasonable. In practice it is somewhat of a joke.

Let's talk about won-loss record and begin with the observation that the "section playoff" component of won-loss record is irrelevant because every team will be undefeated since a basic criteria is that one must win the Section/Division to be considered. In the abstract overall won-loss record is meaningless. Harry Welch's St. Margaret team was 14-0 but played 14 teams that collectively were at about the level of Golden Valley according to Calpreps.

Common opponents also is a pretty dicey factor since it doesn't take into account when or where the teams met and the consequences at stake. Here's an extreme example. In 2006, Hart played St. Bonnie in the first game of the season and lost 34-0. The teams met again in the quarters and Hart won 27-14. Same teams. Same players. Same field. 47-point swing.

Strength of Schedule, combined with Won-Loss record seems like a pretty decent combination of factors. However, do you think any of the Commissioners will have seen a single game outside there own section? I doubt it unless they happened to watch one of the FSN games. In the Southern Section, its very unlikely the Commissioner has seen more than a few of the top teams. Places like Centennial, St. Bonnie, Oaks, not to mention the Santa Clarita or Antelope Valleys (and we won't even talk about the Pac-7 League) are a million miles away from the SS-Office in Los Al. So how are the folks down there going to decide strength of schedule? As I understand it, Mark Tennis, certainly a knowledgeable guy -- but only one guy who is running a ranking business which in turn has it's own political concerns -- is invited to offer his opinion at the selection meeting. Count on it, the polls and computer rankings will always be THE huge though unspoken factor in determining strength of schedule.

Margin of victory is specifically a forbidden factor. But, again, count on it, the commissioner from the Northern Section or the Central Coast Section is likely to be wholly clueless about Southern Section teams and vice versa. You don't think he isn't going look at the won-loss record and note that CIF-SS team A beat the stuffing out of teams X, Y and Z in the playoffs? He's going to see scores, not simply wins and losses. And he certainly won't know whether team A's stars were still out on there on the field trying to run it up on the last series with a 5 TD lead.

Then there is the media factor, the press buzz. In my neck of the woods, this was a huge advantage for Birmingham. The Daily News has been running a continuing story on the team "A Season Under the Lights" with daily blogging, a couple of articles per week and a boatload of videos. There is no question that Eric Sondheimer of the LA Times was promoting Birmingham as well. Mater Dei was getting the same kind of publicity with the Marine connection. MD, Centennial and Poly had a distinct advantage in getting multiple game TV coverage (I cannot recall that Birmingham was ever on the tube; nor was St. Bonnie, Bakersfield or Oceanside). It's not unfair in that it's external to the selection process but it does make a difference.

Then there's the economic factor. Some teams travel well and have huge followings. Others don't. Again it's an unspoken but very real consideration.

Ultimately, the only criteria ought to be head-to-head competition. That Birmingham, Poly and Bakersfield get left out without even getting a shot at Centennial just is not right.

My solution which is Southern Section-centric is (1) cut down the number of divisions with a minimum of 32 teams and preferably 36 teams per division and allow only the first two teams in league play to advance (one ought to have tie-breakers better than a coin flip too); (2) consider cutting the sectional playoffs to three games from four; (3) add a four team playoff between the best Section and/or Division champs to get into the state game. While in any given year, someone is bound to get the shaft and not get invited to the big party, it's far more likely to be the tail-end Charlie, not, as this year, top tier, absolutely deserving teams like Birmingham and Poly, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Bakersfield (who I'm moving to the North group anyway).

Given the gigantic size of our state, I'm still not sure, even with changes, that this whole state game system makes a whole lot of sense because of the other problems it creates with recruiting and transfers.