This week's bizarre high school football score

Monterey-Salinas-Hollister-Santa Cruz formed some god-awful super league that will make the SEC blush. There were so many divisions, I had no hope of keeping straight which was an A league or one of the B leagues. Hell, there might have been a D league. I think because of how massively big it was, the two Gilroy schools bailed (I could be wrong, but I think they went to play San Jose schools. It would be a better deal than having to schlep to Monterey or Gonzales to play league games).

 

Detail some of those ways you prevent running this up without telling your JVs and freshmen to sit on the ball. I'm curious.

 

If there’s no running clock, using every second of the play clock is an option. You’ll at least kill a good chunk of time

 

I've heard that a lot in debates about this. Why do you have to prove anything? You're just playing football. And believe me, those kids are going to have the same high school experience whether it's 76-0 or 108-0.

It's when we start wringing our hands and wrack our brains to find transparent ways of laying down that it gets a little ridiculous. And again ... at some point, the onus is on the losing team to get better or get out.

We had a team down this way that was pretty darn bad. (Ironically, it's named after the worst president in history -- James Buchanan.) They have nearly 800 kids in the top four grades, and normally suit up 16-20 players. When they started trailing games 50-0 at the half, you know what they did? They bowed out of their conference's football schedule and spent a few years playing a custom-made schedule of independent schools they could be borderline competitive against.

If we're all about protecting fragile young psyches, why isn't that the first option on our minds?

 

Agreed, the way growth is trending in the South Bay, Gilroy is a better fit in a San Jose based league. And as nice as I think it would be to have Watsonville and Pajaro Valley in the SCCAL, it boils down to competitiveness, and outside of boys soccer and softball, it's a tough road.

As a stringer, thank Tebow I don't have to decipher A, B and C leagues! But it beats the Central Section's all-swim method.

 

What if you don't have that many scrubs? Not every school is a giant Texas 6A with 110 players on the sideline.
I've seen dominant teams among the smaller schools that only had 25 or 30 players. Under that rule they'd barely be able to field a team the following week. Even teams with 30-40 players would be in trouble with depth.
It'd also put teams at a huge advantage or disadvantage based on their schedule. The ones who blow out a jabroni the week before a big district game, and don't have the depth to sub out, are pretty screwed the following week. Especially if they play a team that had a more competitive game.
And that's not even factoring in the idea that you're penalizing the scrubs who would be ineligible the following week to potentially see time in another blowout.

 

Leagues in football

C league = you suck hard
B league = you suck but not as bad as C teams
A league = congrats, you’re good! You’re reward is playing the WCAL in the playoffs!

 

In the case of Nickerson-Andale, it was a district game. Those determine who the playoff qualifiers in a given area will be and in Kansas, for whatever dumb reason, if you forfeit one district game, you forfeit them all.

Nickerson's options wouldn't have been good in this instance.
* - forfeit to Andale, then end up playing meaningless district games the rest of the season because all of them will be official losses regardless of the outcome.
* - knowing Andale's dominance, ask not be placed in a district at all. You could then play whoever you want (and not play Andale) but you're ineligible for the playoffs. And it's possible to make it out of a Class 3A district with as few as three wins.

If Class 3A allowed open scheduling like Classes 6A, 5A and 4A do, this game could have been avoided since Nickerson and Andale are in different leagues. In fact, I'm not sure why Kansas has two completely different playoff qualification systems.

 

MaxPreps says non-district.



Incidentally, it sort of blew my mind that Nickerson won its season opener by a score of 28-0. How bad is that opponent?

 

When it comes to MaxPreps, you need to measure about 10 times and cut once.