Football: How much fun would this be?
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Since many of the best teams in the Southern Section reside in different playoff divisions, reader Steve Sakakini has proposed an eight-team playoff to resolve the issue of who is truly No. 1.
Taking The Times’ most recent top 25 rankings, the first-round matchups would be as follows:
No. 1 Long Beach Poly vs. No. 8 Orange Lutheran
No. 4 Ventura St. Bonaventure vs. No. 5 Santa Ana Mater Dei
No. 2 Corona Centennial vs. No. 7 Oaks Christian
No. 3 Sherman Oaks Notre Dame vs. No. 6 Tesoro
The following week, the Poly-Lutheran winner would play the St. Bonaventure-Mater Dei winner in one semifinal and the Centennial-Oaks Christian winner would play the Notre Dame-Tesoro winner in another. The winners of those games would meet in the title game.
Sakakini proposes that all games are played at neutral sites.
--Ben Bolch