Rose Bowl Possible Site for Next Year

The Southern Section held its Division I football championship game in the Los Angeles Coliseum last year and Edison International Field this year. Could next year’s game take place in the Rose Bowl?

It’s possible, according to Southern Section assistant commissioner Bill Clark. The Rose Bowl has always had a “lockout policy” after Dec. 1 to prepare its field for the annual New Year’s Day game. But Clark said the section received a letter this year that the stadium was changing its policy beginning next year.

“We’ll certainly talk to them,” Clark said. “But we don’t know what the rent would be. How much they’d charge for parking. The only negative I see is traditionally we don’t have teams from the North, so it might be out of the way for the schools in the game.”

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Fifteen players from Concord De La Salle, which handed Mater Dei its only loss of the season, drove down to watch the Division I title game and cheer for the Monarchs. Tight end Tosh Lupoi said his teammates toured the Mater Dei campus Saturday and met with Mater Dei players.

“We wanted to check out the program and see what it was about,” Lupoi said.

The De La Salle players were impressed with Mater Dei’s performance in its 33-26 victory over Long Beach Poly, but they wouldn’t say whether it would have been good enough to end their 88-game winning streak.

“It’s a different matchup,” Lupoi said. “Mater Dei definitely brought their ‘A’ game. [Matt] Grootegoed played big time. He was everywhere on defense against us, but he didn’t do too much on offense.”

Saturday night, Grootegoed rushed for 244 yards and two touchdowns.

De La Salle finished the season unbeaten and ranked No. 1 in the state.

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Gary McKnight, Mater Dei’s athletic director and boys’ basketball coach, switched his Tournament of Champions title game against Compton from Saturday night to Saturday afternoon so the school’s basketball fans could watch the football team play.

“We knew we weren’t going to draw many fans other than the parents from both teams,” said McKnight, whose team beat Compton, 69-63. “Compton was nice to accommodate us.”

Mater Dei’s fourth section title in the 1990s had extra meaning for McKight.

“My son [Bryan] is starting at guard and that made this one very special,” he said.