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There’s one week left in the high school football regular season. Some leagues have crowned their champions while other teams are still vying for automatic playoff berths.
West Ranch (Foothill League) and Thousand Oaks (Canyon) have already crowned themselves league champions; Oaks Christian and St. Bonaventure will play in a winner-takes-all Marmonte League championship next week; and with season-finale wins Chaminade and Sierra Canyon would share the Mission League title.
As the drama unfolds, the Calpreps.com rankings are taking shape, which means some teams can be confident where they’ll be placed on October 30 when the CIF Southern Section announces the playoff pairings for 14 divisions at 10 a.m. that Sunday morning.
Here’s a look at where the area’s top teams will likely land, according to Calpreps.com’s updated rankings on October 22. However, teams on the cusp of the low end of one division line and the top end of another could move pending on the final week’s results and at-large berths.
DIVISION 2
Chaminade (8-1), which was previously ranked seventh, dropped to ninth after Friday night’s 49-14 loss to Sierra Canyon (5-4). It’s likely to stay that way even if Chaminade beats Gardena Serra next week, which means the Eagles will avoid a Division 1 (eight teams) playoff berth where’d they likely play No. 1 Mater Dei or No. 2 St. John Bosco.
Sierra Canyon jumped to 20th with the win. If the Division 1 field takes eight teams, teams ranked 9 through 24 would theoretically make up the Division 2 16-team field, which would also include Oaks Christian.
DIVISION 3
West Ranch (10-0) is a lock to be in Division 3. With the Wildcats’ season over (no game next week) and being five spots clear of the Division 2 window (25th-41st) at 29th, they’re likely to host a first-round playoff game on November 4. Thousand Oaks (9-0) is also sitting in Division 3 territory, but at 40th.
It would be hard to see, but Thousand Oaks could be like Simi Valley last year … on the road in the first round of the playoffs after a historical season.
NOTABLES
Newbury Park (8-1), Highland (8-1) and Saugus (7-2) looked to be headed to Division 4. St. Francis (7-2), which clinched a share of the Angelus League, is likely to be placed in Division 5, along with Valencia (4-5), Simi Valley (4-5), and/or Notre Dame (4-5), pending the division’s availability for at-large teams.