Orange County high school football’s grand experiment begins next week.
That’s when the county’s new six-team football leagues play their league openers. The five-team Zeta League will have to wait one more week and the four-team Alpha League will wait two more weeks before their league games begin.
The leagues were completely overhauled and then grouped together according to their Calpreps.com rating that is based on results from the past two seasons. The 2023 season rating comprises 65 percent of the overall rating and the 2022 rating is the other 35 percent.
The opinion here is that it is important to see a team play to get a true assessment of a team – with the three biggest factors being team speed on defense, how physical a team is in the fourth quarter and the performance of the quarterback. These are factors a computer cannot see or measure. Yet the computer-driven Calpreps.com ratings have an accuracy I covet. (You can read about the ratings method at the Calpreps.com website.)
The new leagues have dumb names in quasi-alphabetical order like Alpha, which is the top league, and Delta and Foxtrot (stop giggling and don’t send that email because I know the military application) on down to Zeta.
Some of the league names sound like car names — “it’s the new Kia Omicron!”
The concept of creating these leagues was to group teams of similar quality into the same leagues. The concept looks great from here. The Trinity League was left as is, and remains the best high school football league in the world.
These leagues are set for the 2024 and ’25 seasons and are for football only.
A glance at the new leagues …
Alpha: This is a four-team league with Edison, Los Alamitos, Mission Viejo and San Clemente. Mission Viejo is going to roll. Mission Viejo at San Clemente is a league opener on Oct. 18.
Bravo: Villa Park is at Yorba Linda in a league opener Thursday, Oct. 3. That’s a great opener. Those two teams and San Juan Hills will be the top contenders for the league championship.
Delta: The league has an excellent league opener Thursday, Oct. 3, when Trabuco Hills plays at El Modena. Those two teams might be the top challengers to Tustin, which might be the team with the most talent in the league.
Epsilon: Crean Lutheran and La Habra are the teams to beat. They play each other Oct. 18 at La Habra.
Foxtrot: The top four teams in this one – Aliso Niguel, Dana Hills, Laguna Beach and Northwood – are similar in quality. On Oct. 4, Dana Hills is at Aliso Niguel and Laguna Beach plays Northwood at Irvine High.
Iota: Troy is the best team here. If you like high-scoring football, this is your league.
Kappa: Brea Olinda at Segerstrom on Oct. 25 could be for the league title.
Lambda: Beckman and Marina both will be 4-0 in when they meet on the final Friday of the regular season, Nov. 1 at Westminster High.
Omicron: Pacifica looks like a 5-0 team in this league.
Sigma: Longtime Garden Grove League rivals Los Amigos and Rancho Alamitos are the top dogs here. They play each other Oct. 10 at Garden Grove High.
Tango: Anaheim and La Quinta seem headed for a league championship game Nov. 1 at Bolsa Grande High.
Zeta: Whichever one of these three teams – Century, Godinez and Savanna – can stay the healthiest will have a great chance of winning the championship of this five-team league.
As for the Trinity League, Mater Dei is inevitable. St. John Bosco is better than many thought, as is JSerra. Orange Lutheran and Servite are talented and spirited and Santa Margarita at its best can finish among the top three.
NOTES
Mission Viejo’s football team plays Long Beach Poly on Oct. 4 at SoFi Stadium. Servite plays St. John Bosco at SoFi on Oct. 18. Mission Viejo and Servite are the home teams. …
Boys basketball commitments this week: Canyon’s Brandon Benjamin to the University of San Diego; Santa Margarita’s Brayden Kyman to Washington State; and Santa Margarita’s Dallas Washington to Long Beach State. …
Mater Dei’s girls volleyball team won the top division championship in the Durango Fall Classic at Las Vegas Saturday. Monarchs sophomore Westley Matavao was named MVP of the great tournament. Huntington Beach won the championship of the Classic Division. …
Newport Harbor’s boys water polo team beat Corona del Mar 16-9 on Wednesday. It’s the 16th win in a row for the Sailors against their top rival. …
The most interesting activity at Thursday’s meeting of the CIF Southern Section Council, the CIF-SS legislative body, is the passage of a proposal that prohibits donations to officials organizations, donations that are intended to supplement what officials already are paid for their work or are intended to procure specific officials for specific games or matches.
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