Inglewood players (left) head out onto the field before recent game during 10-0 regular season. At right is Class of 2026 standout cornerback Jeffery Johnson of Oak Hills, which also had a 10-0 regular season but lost in a first round section playoff game. Photos: X.com & @Jefflockz / X.com.
We were not able to get out to a Friday night game this week, and with many of the state’s top-ranked teams on first round section playoff byes, our focus became the plight of teams that were 10-0 in the regular season that did play in the CIF Southern Section, CIF L.A. City Section and CIF Central Section playoffs. Seven of those 13 teams were defeated. Plus, we had another team finish out a 10-0 regular season that tied a state record.
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High school football teams in the era of competitive equity section and state playoffs don’t get much of a break these days if they go though a regular season with a perfect record.
In previous years, from around the early 1970s when CIF section playoffs began throughout the state until the late 2010s, when a team had a 10-0 regular season it was usually combined with a league championship and home CIF section playoff and then played in a playoff division in which that team had a reasonable chance of winning a section title.
Those days are long gone, of course, as competitive equity based CIF section playoffs usually places 10-0 teams in higher divisions than they historically had been in and in some cases in divisions in which it realistically has no chance of winning a section title and then doing something even more sweet than just 10-0 for the regular season.
