Final Five-Divisional State Rankings

Marin Catholic’s Jared Goff, Akili Terry and Alex Poksay were part of a championship team that has been selected No. 1 for traditional Division IV according to the Cal-Hi Sports state rankings. Photo by Harold Abend.

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It’s only been since 2006 that there have been CIF state football bowl games and it’s only been since 2008 in which there has been an Open Division in addition to Division I, Division II, Division III and Division IV.

But it’s been since 1978 – and even further back to 1975 when Nelson Tennis (the founder of Cal-Hi Sports) was first asked to compile state rankings by the Sacramento Bee – that we have been doing state rankings according to our own five-division breakdowns.

We haven’t been releasing our traditional five-division state rankings on a weekly basis since the advent of the bowl games, but at the conclusion of the season we have continued to release the traditional five-division format so that each year matches the others in the Cal-Hi Sports State Record Book & Almanac.

Here are the final rankings according to these five divisions for the 2012 season:

DIVISION I
1. De La Salle (Concord) 15-0
2. Centennial (Corona) 14-2
3. Narbonne (Harbor City) 14-1
4. Vista Murrieta (Murrieta) 13-1
5. Folsom 14-1
6. Granite Bay 13-3
7. Long Beach Poly (Long Beach) 12-4
8. St. John Bosco (Bellflower) 12-1*
9. Mater Dei (Santa Ana) 11-3
10. St. Bonaventure (Ventura) 11-2
11. Mission Viejo 11-1
12. Upland 12-1
13. Santa Margarita (Rancho SM) 9-3
14. Alemany (Mission Hills) 9-3
15. Notre Dame (Sherman Oaks) 8-4
16. Crenshaw (Los Angeles) 11-2
17. Clovis North (Clovis) 12-2
18. Oaks Christian (Westlake Village) 8-3
19. Oak Ridge (El Dorado Hills) 12-2
20. Franklin (Elk Grove) 12-1
Notes & Highlights
These rankings match the same order down to No. 24 in the overall final top 50 rankings that were released last week. Even if the previous CIF bowl game format was used for these teams, the only one that would have been Division II instead of Division I is Folsom. De La Salle has finished No. 1 in Division I and for the entire state 16 times since 1992. The Spartans are the only CIF North Coast Section team, however, that is listed in the top 20 above. This is mostly due to their margin of victory over NCS Division I runner-up James Logan of Union City compared to the many close games involving teams from the CIF Southern Section Pac-Five Division.

DIVISION II
1. Serra (Gardena) 14-2
2. Chaminade (West Hills) 12-2
3. Edison (Huntington Beach) 13-2
4. Oceanside 12-1
5. Citrus Hill (Perris) 14-0
6. Lompoc 12-1
7. Palos Verdes (PV Estates) 11-3
8. Villa Park 12-2
9. Poway 10-3
10. Helix (La Mesa) 9-2
11. Valhalla (El Cajon) 9-4
12. Oakdale 14-2
13. Clayton Valley (Concord) 12-2
14. Garces (Bakersfield) 12-1
15. Serrano (Phelan) 13-1
Notes & Highlights
All of the teams that were considered D2 North and D2 South for the state bowl games fall into this statewide division. It wasn’t always the case, but in the last few years the CIF itself has gone away from putting teams into divisions based strictly on enrollment. To be clear, our own divisions (even back in the early 1980s) have always been based on league strength and on matching all of the section playoff divisions. In this statewide division, the obvious distinction is NorCal D2 No. 1 Oakdale only coming in at No. 12 behind 11 teams from the south. This is because of Oakdale’s margin of defeat against both Serra of Gardena (42-15) and Oceanside (34-14). Valhalla of El Cajon, for example, lost to the same team by just three points in the San Diego Section playoffs.

DIVISION III
1. Madison (San Diego) 14-1
2. El Cerrito 13-1
3. St. Augustine (San Diego) 10-3*
4. Corona del Mar (Newport Beach) 11-3
5. Sutter 13-1
6. Nordhoff (Ojai) 13-1
7. Valley Christian (San Jose) 7-6
8. Analy (Sebastopol) 12-1
9. Campolindo (Moraga) 10-2
10. Ridgeview (Bakersfield) 11-3
11. Brawley 10-2
12. North (Torrance) 13-1
13. Lincoln (San Diego) 9-4
14. Garden Grove 11-3
15. Laguna Beach 11-1-1
Notes & Highlights:
CIF Division III bowl winner Madison checks in as a Division III team for these divisional breakdowns due to its enrollment and the enrollment of other teams in the San Diego Division IV playoffs. The team the Warhawks beat in that bowl game, however, Marin Catholic, is actually considered Division IV in the CIF North Coast Section but petitioned up for the section playoffs. El Cerrito, which lost to Marin Catholic by just 30-28 in a back-and-forth section final, ends up at No. 2 in these rankings. Two teams we ranked in Division III above that were considered Division II South for the bowl games were Ridgeview of Bakersfield and Lincoln of San Diego.

DIVISION IV
1. Marin Catholic (Kentfield) 14-2
2. Central Catholic (Modesto) 14-2
3. Monrovia 12-3
4. Wasco 13-0
5. Cardinal Newman (Santa Rosa) 11-2
6. Sacred Heart Prep (Atherton) 12-1
7. Ripon 11-1
8. Escalon 11-3
9. Placer (Auburn) 11-1
10. Paraclete (Lancaster) 12-2
11. San Dimas 11-2
12. Rim of the World (Lake Arrowhead) 12-2
13. Bishop Diego (Santa Barbara) 12-1
14. Ontario Christian 13-1
15. Los Banos 11-2
Notes & Highlights
With the way in which Central Catholic destroyed Santa Fe Christian in the CIF Division IV bowl game and the way in which the Raiders beat Escalon in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV final, choosing a No. 1 between CC and Marin Catholic was indeed difficult. We basically already did that, though, in the final top 50 rankings. The difference is that Marin Catholic had that win over St. Ignatius of San Francisco, the eventual CCS Open Division champion. As dominating as the Raiders were down the stretch, they still didn’t have a win over an opponent like that during the season. And for these divisional rankings, all CIF Sac-Joaquin D4 teams are considered D4. There is no 500-student enrollment cutoff. We also want to point out that if the CIF added a division for upcoming bowl games (Open, plus D1-D5) then teams like Wasco in the south and Ferndale in the north would likely have gotten a bid instead of being passed over by teams that played stronger schedules.

DIVISION V
1. Ferndale 12-1
2. Santa Fe Christian (Solana Beach) 11-3
3. Rio Hondo Prep (Arcadia) 12-2
4. Mission Prep (San Luis Obispo) 11-2
5. Brookside Christian (Stockton) 10-2
6. Le Grand 11-2
7. Valley Christian (Dublin) 8-3
8. St. Vincent de Paul (Petaluma) 10-3
9. California School for the Deaf (Fremont) 10-2
10. Francis Parker (San Diego) 8-5
Notes & Highlights
The top ranking in this division came down to Ferndale or Santa Fe Christian because teams such as Central Catholic of Modesto (the CIF D4 state bowl winner), McClymonds of Oakland (picked ahead of Ferndale to play CC in NorCal bowl game), Bishop Diego of Santa Barbara (No. 1 in D4 South) and Ontario Christian (No. 2 in D4 South) would all be considered Division IV and not Division V according to this format. While we don’t know if Ferndale would have lost by just as big of a margin against Central Catholic that Santa Fe Christian did, we do know that the Wildcats lost out in a very close vote to McClymonds for the NorCal bowl bid. Ferndale also impressed with a 53-14 victory over St. Vincent de Paul of Petaluma in the CIF North Coast Section Division V championship.

Comments or corrections? Email markjtennis@gmail.com.