Avocado League Power Is Turned on in Playoffs : Football: Showing that records can be deceiving, five teams reach 2-A quarterfinals.

Except for perennial power El Camino, Avocado League football teams rarely receive recognition from newspapers or seeding committees. But come late November, the league usually has a majority of its teams playing in the 2-A quarterfinals while teams ranked above them are at home watching.

The pattern is no different this year. Five of eight Avocado teams are in the quarterfinals for the second year in a row, but only El Camino was ranked by The Times in its final poll.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Avocado will have two teams in the semifinals. If Escondido upsets second-seeded La Jolla, it will have three teams in the semifinals for the second time in three seasons.

Is there any question the Avocado is the most dominant league in the county?

“We don’t have to say that,” El Camino Coach Herb Meyer said. “The proof is right there.”

University City Coach Steve Vukojevich, whose team was beaten Friday by San Marcos, 50-21, didn’t argue with Meyer.

“I’d have to agree,” Vukojevich said. “They just have good players and good coaches. They have the best league and I don’t think it’s even close.”

If it were close, Friday’s first round widened the gap. Avocado teams outscored their opponents, 179-64.

In addition to San Marcos’ blowout, San Pasqual (7-4) defeated third-seeded Lincoln (7-4), 28-22.

For their troubles, San Pasqual and San Marcos get to face each other Saturday night at San Marcos. San Pasqual Coach Mike Dolan is not very happy about playing someone his team defeated a month ago, 20-18.

“We fight so hard to get out of the Avocado and then we’re right back playing them in the second round,” Dolan said.

Oceanside (7-4), which beat higher-seeded Kearny (7-4), 21-14, was rewarded with a quarterfinal game Friday night at El Camino (10-1), the 2-A’s top seed and two-time defending champion. El Camino destroyed Crawford, the second-place team from the City Central League, 50-0.

Meyer said Oceanside’s record, like many that of the Avocado teams, is deceiving.

“People get carried away with records,” he said. “They don’t look at who you’re playing. When you go down and look and some of the city teams playing each other, they may have a record that says they are 7-3 or 8-2. But that doesn’t mean they’re very good.”

Meanwhile, balanced Avocado teams beat each other up all season and finish with 6-4 and 5-5 records. But Dolan said the league comes out ahead in the long run.

“You are forced to play great defense because no one runs the same offense in our league,” Dolan said. “Week in and week out you have to make some pretty serious defensive adjustments. So once we get to the playoffs, everything we see is pretty standard. Sometimes, the games even get easier in the playoffs.”

Dolan said Kearny’s 1990 team was a perfect example of a city league school having a deceiving record. Kearny entered the section final with a 11-1-1 record against El Camino’s mark of 9-4. But El Camino won, 27-7.

“Nobody plays defense like El Camino,” Dolan said. “Kearny had a pretty good ballclub, but they didn’t have a clue what kind of pressure they would face when they played El Camino.”

Santana Coach Doug Coffin said his team didn’t have much of clue against Escondido, the fifth-place team in the Avocado. Although Santana finished second in the Grossmont 2-A, it was soundly beaten, 30-7.

But Coffin said the reasons for Avocado superiority are pretty simple. City teams do not have freshman football and they have fewer paid coaches than North County schools.

“Athletics is a priority up there with administration and parents,” he said. “I see the same thing every year in the playoffs. The kids are tougher (in the Avocado) because they’ve been in the game longer. And the execution is better because they’ve been in their programs for another year.”

The difference in coaching stipends is startling. Santana has four paid coaches in its football programs and El Camino has 14. Most Avocado League programs have at least 12 coaching stipends; city schools rarely have more than five.

Another factor is enrollment. Some city 2-A schools have almost 1,000 fewer students than Avocado schools.

Meyer does not deny that the Avocado has several advantages--larger schools, larger coaching staffs, more community involvement and more competitive games.

“You can have advantages,” he said, “but you still have to take advantage of them.”

And nobody can say Avocado League coaches haven’t done that.