Issues facing prep football in 2017: forfeits, star backups, dwindling participation, drones, live streaming

As the 2017 high school football season begins this weekend, let’s take a look at a few of the trends, debates and issues:

Pressure to avoid forfeits: There were 16,595 sports transfers in California last school year. There were also lots of forfeits because of ineligible players.

The pressure is on athletic directors to not simply rubber-stamp transfers. As Ronald Reagan would say, “Trust, but verify.”

South Gate didn’t make the City Section playoffs last season after ineligible players were discovered. Los Angeles and Hawkins forfeited all of their games because of ineligible players.

Several schools in the City Section and Southern Section have double-digit transfers this fall, and come November you can expect there will be anonymous emails questioning addresses. That puts the onus on athletic directors to do due diligence.

Backups at Bellflower St. John Bosco and Santa Ana Mater Dei are how good? Ed Croson, the coach at West Hills Chaminade, always reminds his players when facing Gardena Serra: “Don’t hurt the starters because the backups might be better.”

The same can be said for St. John Bosco and Mater Dei, ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the Southland by The Times.

College recruiters have been making scholarship offers to underclassmen on both teams, a few of whom don’t get to start. But the good news for the reserves from either school is that the two teams should be winning games by wide margins, letting the backups play if it’s not a running clock.

For St. John Bosco, 6-foot-5 sophomore quarterback DJ Uiagalelei is so good that offensive coordinator Chad Johnson calls him “unbelievable.” Junior defensive backs Paul Edwards and Jake Bailey have scholarship offers.

For Mater Dei, sophomore running back Chris Street and others move up from a 10-0 freshman team. It’s going to be Competition Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday every week.

Numbers continue to dwindle: More than 25,000 fewer students played high school football nationwide in 2016-17. The decline can be seen on lower-level programs.

Long Beach Poly, with an enrollment of more than 4,000 students, dropped junior varsity football. Anaheim Servite started out with 135 freshmen and 271 players overall in 2010. This season, there are 128 students in the program, including 54 freshmen. Pasadena Blair, Sun Valley Village Christian and Huntington Beach Brethren Christian dropped their football programs. Others are switching from 11-man to eight-man football.

It hasn’t reached the panic stage, with the demise of tackle football imminent, but the decline in numbers is real. Schools are going to need to start convincing skeptical parents and students that the sport is safe, fun and provides an invaluable learning experience.

The drone wars: The newest gadget and must-have technological wonder for high school football teams is the drone. Teams have discovered that sending up a drone to film practice is pretty easy and productive, especially when a manager is put in charge and learns to fly it with the confidence of an F-16 pilot.

However, flying a drone during a game is a different story. Although there is no rule barring drones during games, the CIF has directed officials not to allow them for safety and liability reasons. So if you want to see flying objects with propellers, head out to a practice field near you.

Live streaming spreads: Whether using unmanned cameras or an iPhone, schools are adding live streaming in rapid fashion. If you can’t make a game or you want to watch multiple games on your smartphone, the opportunities will be many this fall.

Studio City Harvard-Westlake has one of the most sophisticated live streams, with instant replay, graphics and a sideline reporter. Its games have been watched in 20 countries.

Now, if only the press boxes were large enough for the expanding technological wonders. If you see a newspaper reporter lost and looking unhappy, have sympathy.