As it stands, De La Salle will get a free pass

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There’s no one to challenge Concord De La Salle for the opportunity to represent Northern California in the Division I Bowl game in December.

Sure, there are teams. And yes, De La Salle may be the best of them this year from the NorCal. But there’s no guarantee the Spartans were the best team last year, when they was chosen over Sacramento Grant.

And the schools from the Central Section -- such as perennial power Fresno Clovis West -- are getting the short end of the yardstick. They are part of the South, rather than the North, when it comes to choosing participants in the State Bowl games.

The City, Southern and San Diego Sections can hold their own when it comes to representing the South, where there’s not necessarily a shortage of Division I teams.

But in Northern California, there aren’t nearly as many Division I-sized schools. That’s why it’s important to include the Central Section with the North -- to provide a larger pool of teams from which to draw . Let’s face it, Bakersfield (from the Central Section) and the San Fernando Valley might as well be a million miles from each other.

As it is, De La Salle’s reputation will ensure that it is always the Division I state representative. That has to change.

When schools such as Grant have years in which they are at least comparable to De La Salle, which was the case last year, they have to be taken seriously.

Rankings last season had De La Salle No. 1 in the nation before it lost to Canyon Country Canyon at the Home Depot Center. One of the inherent flaws of national rankings is that reputation plays into it. Teams that are good in a one-off year will never get the benefit of the doubt, ranking-wise, and that makes it difficult to get the benefit of the doubt selection-wise. Thus, DLS will always be the North Division I representative as long as it wins its section title (a prerequisite for being considered a Bowl Game participant).

Clovis West or Fresno Bullard or whoever from the Central Section will almost always play second fiddle to the best Division I team from the Southland, i.e., Long Beach Poly, Corona Centennial or Birmingham should those teams win out ...

But that’s not to say Bullard isn’t as good or better than De La Salle.

Bullard beat Clovis West by a field goal. Corona Centennial, ranked No. 2 in the state this week, beat Clovis West by a touchdown. Who’s to say that Bullard isn’t as good or better than Centennial or De La Salle, especially when the best team on De La Salle’s schedule is Mission Viejo? Centennial is almost certainly better than Mission Viejo.

It’s incumbent upon those schools to prove themselves, as Clovis West has tried to do by playing some of the state’s top programs. Perhaps that’s where Grant failed. Maybe that will be considered Bullard’s failing, too.

But if Bullard runs the table, who should it be up against in the selection process for a State Bowl berth, Concord De La Salle, which is 169 miles away, or Centennial, which is 272? Even Hart, which is about as North as you can go on Interstate 5 and still be in the Southern Section, is 30 miles farther from Bullard than DLS.

If competition and fairness are the cornerstones of the California Interscholastic Federation’s ideals, then this change must take place. The Central Section must be included with the North, otherwise it’s doing a disservice to all schools from Fresno to Bakersfield.

Of course, the real State Bowl games should be private and public in nature. But that’s another blog.

- Martin Henderson