‘94 Football Preview : GOAL ORIENTED : Championship Quests Begin--And the Run for Revamped City Titles Could be Wild

When Locke’s star running back Sirr Parker and the rest of the Central City’s high school football players take the field on opening night Friday, they’ll have the usual goals in mind: team victories, personal success, and if all goes really well, a championship title to cap off the 1994 season in December.

But whatever twists and turns are in store for the players, a trip to the City Section title will take a much different course than in past years, thanks to a radical change in the playoff system that has left some coaches pleased and others scratching their heads at the complexity of what is to come.

Tired of seeing the City Section’s most physical football teams--Carson, Banning, Dorsey, San Pedro and Crenshaw--beat each other up weekly in the Southern Pacific Conference, Dorsey Coach Paul Knox has long advocated football realignment of the conference.

When his most recent efforts to break up teams in the conference failed, Knox provoked the scramble to a new playoff format with a not-so-subtle threat to exercise his right to drop his powerhouse Dorsey team--a perennial contender for the championship in the stronger 4-A Division--to the 3-A Division.

“Under the current playoff system, Dorsey may very well go to the 3-A Division,” Knox said during a football coaches meeting in January that left his colleagues dumbfounded.

Although Dorsey played for the City 4-A title last season, the Dons, who were 10-4 overall, were eligible to drop to the 3-A Division because they finished the regular season tied for last in the tough Pacific League.

In most conferences, teams with the four best records are grouped in a 4-A league and the remaining teams compete in a 3-A league the next school year.

Knox was told by one coach “that will never happen,” and conference realignment went on the back burner again. But even the idea of Dorsey riding roughshod over weaker 3-A Division teams in the playoffs was enough to push the City Section to revamp its playoff system.

Under the new system, 16 teams with the best records will be selected to compete for the 4-A title and the 16 next-best teams will compete for the 3-A title.

The six conference champions will gain automatic berths to the 4-A playoffs and the remaining 10 at-large spots will be determined by a nine-member selection committee. Those at-large teams and all of the 3-A playoff teams will be selected based on record, strength of conference, and strength of nonconference schedule. Winning a league title will have no bearing on playoffs.

“If they want to crown league champions they can, but it will have nothing to do with the playoffs,” City Commissioner Barbara Fiege said.

The new system will come as good news to football fans who believed that San Pedro should have played for the 4-A championship last season. Under the old playoff system, teams were assigned to either a 3-A or 4-A league within the City’s six conferences based on previous performance. At the end of the season, 16 teams--the top two teams from each league and four at-large teams--were selected to each of the two playoffs.

Despite winning the 3-A title in 1992, the Pirates lost their petition to replace Crenshaw in the 4-A Pacific League and were designated a 3-A team for 1993 in the Southern League of the Southern Pacific Conference. The Cougars won the 3-A title in 1991.

“No one wanted to put Dorsey or Crenshaw in the 3-A,” San Pedro Coach Mike Walsh said.

In 1993, the Pirates went 13-1 and easily defeated Fremont, 31-7, for their second consecutive 3-A title.

“San Pedro was probably the undisputed best team in the City,” Fiege said. “Yet because of previous conference alignment, they were a 3-A team. This new (playoff) system will take away the labeling of a team ahead of time.”

The advantages of the new system also include:

* Allowing 16 teams with the best records to compete for one championship instead of risking having superior teams competing in the lower division.

* Preventing teams with losing or even winless records from qualifying for the playoffs.

* Giving a team going through a rebuilding year a chance to compete for a 3-A title one season and the next season to compete with a veteran squad for the 4-A title. South Gate, for example, won the 3-A title in 1988 and reached the semifinals in 1989, but struggled with a rebuilding team against 4-A competition in 1990.

“Football teams go through cycles,” South Gate Coach Gary Cordray said. “The years we had good teams, we played in the 3-A and the years we had bad teams we were in the 4-A.”

But the new system does have its share of potential glitches. While the Southern Pacific Conference will have its lion’s share--one coach estimates five of the conference’s eight teams will qualify--the Northern Conference is expected to have no more than one of its eight teams in the playoffs.

Said Knox: “One of the big problems will be to try to determine whether a second-place team in one conference is better or worse than a fourth- or fifth-place team from another conference.”

“The only sure thing is that six conference champions will make the (4-A) playoffs,” said Rob Levy, Belmont Coach and playoff selection committee member. “(The Northern) is not considered a strong conference.”

But the far greater problem may be determining the 10 at-large teams for the 4-A playoffs.

Imagine being the 16th team to qualify for the 4-A playoffs and facing a top seed such as Carson in the first round of the playoffs. Or, dodging that bullet and being judged the 17th-best team in the City with the top seed in the 3-A playoffs and good prospects for a championship.

“What is crucial is not who are the top eight or 10 teams,” Levy said. “What is crucial is the dividing line between the 16th and the 17th teams.”