Granada Hills’ Coach Assails Playoff Format : Prep football: Stroh frustrated by system in which City 4-A teams face each other again.

The pronoun pops up continually in Darryl Stroh’s colorful conversation. Yet the Granada Hills High football co-coach freely admits he does not know who “they” are.

He believes his criticisms to be valid. Yet his solutions are nonexistent and it bothers him. The subject du jour : The 12-team City Section 4-A Division playoffs.

On Monday, Stroh learned that Cleveland had forfeited its first-round game against Taft, rendering Granada Hills’ first-round bye virtually meaningless. Last season, the Highlanders were bitten by a similar scheduling bugaboo when Fairfax forfeited its first-round game against El Camino Real, which then upset the unbeaten Highlanders in the quarterfinals.

Granada Hills (9-1 and seeded fourth this season) will not be able to scout Taft, which will have just as much time to prepare for the Nov. 30 second-round game.

“We lose our advantage again,” Stroh said. “But when you’re in the L.A. City, there’s no advantage at all. It’s inept and out of control.

“(The City Section) should have the best athletic program in the entire nation. This is Southern California and we have the athletes, but there’s no bigger joke anywhere.”

And a red-hot Stroh was just touching the tip of the iceberg. When the playoff seedings were issued last week, Stroh was incensed to learn that his team’s second-round opponent might be Taft, one of the Highlanders’ West Valley League foes. Furthermore, Taft finished with the second-best record in the Northwest Valley Conference at 6-3.

“We’re playing the second-best team from our own league with the second-best record from the same conference,” Stroh said. “That can only happen in the L.A. City. They don’t care.”

Of course, with only 12 of the City’s 49 schools competing at the 4-A level, there is considerable overlap in postseason. Of the five Valley 4-A Division schools playing in the first round tonight, each already has faced its opponent.

“Going to the playoffs is boring,” Stroh said. “It stinks.”

Stroh defended Cleveland’s right to forfeit. The Cavaliers finished the regular season winless.

“I have no quarrel with them,” he said. “They shouldn’t have been here in the first place. It’s the system’s fault.”

Stroh said he’s mad as you-know-what and not going to take it anymore.

“There needs to be a loud public outcry,” he said. “I’m tired of taking it, taking it, taking it. But I don’t know what to do, I don’t have any ideas.”

There is no chance that 4-A schools will ever succeed in expanding the size of the division. That was tried last fall and the 3-A coaches, who easily outnumbered the 4-A coaches, voted to reduce the size of the 4-A from 16 to 12.

“What’s going to happen is all of the (4-A) coaches are going to quit,” he said. “None of us are having any fun. The coaches all work too long and hard, and they’re all better than this district deserves.”

Stroh’s lone suggestion--he promised to address the problems at the Northwest Valley Conference coaches meeting at season’s end--is a tad outlandish.

“I think we should all join the CIF (Southern Section), disband the City athletics office and save everybody some money,” he said.