Clearing up confusion: Why things changed in how football playoff divisions were assigned

For the first time in about a decade, there was no confusion about which division each school that qualified for the Sac-Joaquin Section’s football playoffs would play in.

This is thanks to a change to the league championship rule made by the section during the off-season.

In a number of sports, the league championship rule is this: Teams that qualify for playoffs and win their league are required to play in the division designated to their league. In years prior, football followed the same postseason rule.

“The philosophy is, basically, if you are D-II in enrollment and you play in a D-I league and win that league, you’re probably good enough to compete at the division one level,” CIF Sac-Joaquin Section assistant commissioner Will DeBoard said last week of the prior rule.

The section no longer will apply the league championship rule when determining playoff divisions.

When DeBoard began Sunday’s football playoff selection show, he made note of the rule change. “Everyone knew what division they were going to be in pretty much since August,” he said.

The league championship rule only affected a few sports during 2022-23 year but the problem in football came when a large number of teams were moving between divisions. In order to maintain 12-team playoff brackets, the league championship rule meant that if one team won its league and moved up a division, another team had to move down.

“In the winter, we have four sports that use the league championship rule: Boys and girls soccer and boys and girls basketball,” DeBoard said of the movement in last year’s postseason. “In all four of those sports, because of the league championship rule, we moved up a total of five schools. ... In football alone, a six-division sport, last year 13 schools moved up a division, meaning 13 schools moved down.”

This happened with Patterson High in 2021. The Tigers, a Division IV team by enrollment, beat Merced for the Central California Conference championship. Because the CCC is a Division III league, Patterson moved up to D-III.

Under the old rules, the team with the lowest enrollment moved down a division. Ironically, the Division III team that moved to Division IV was that same Merced outfit that Patterson beat for the league championship. Merced advanced to the Division IV section title game against Vanden and Patterson was eliminated in the Division III section semifinals after losing to Oakdale.

“We had a lot of movement in football and, fair or not, schools were getting moved up into a more competitive situation,” DeBoard said. “Lots of our schools started viewing it as a bit of a punitive thing where you win your league championship and you get penalized by it.”

Finding the solution

The section’s football advisory committee felt it had to change the format that determined which division teams were placed in. DeBoard said the committee found that the best way to put teams on an even playing field is to have them compete against schools their size, whether they were a league champion or not. Ultimately, that meant getting rid of the league championship rule for the 2023 football postseason, which starts Friday night.

“You always try to be as adaptable as you possibly can, and it seems like every single year, there are always changes happening to one or more of our sports’ postseasons. It just so happened that this year, football got a big change,” DeBoard said.

Enrollment is the deciding factor in what places teams in specific divisions in the Sac-Joaquin Section.

“Our schools in the Sac-Joaquin Section believe that enrollment means something,” DeBoard said. “When a very large school plays a very small school, which has happened in Northern California regional and state championship games, our (smaller) schools ... tend to not like that. They like playing schools that kind of look like them and have a similar enrollment.”

The new playoff format does not affect teams like Escalon and Central Catholic, which are in Division IV and Division I, respectively, because of what the section calls its continued success rule.

The Cougars, Raiders and a number of other teams in the Sac-Joaquin Section have worked their way up through the section’s divisions after consistently performing well in the postseason. Central Catholic has played in divisions V, IV and III but this season will compete in Division I for the second straight season because it has continued to win section titles at each level.

In just the past few seasons, Escalon has won section titles in Divisions V and VI. The Cougars this season will compete in the Division IV postseason for the first time.

“Football is definitely a sport that our schools want to know the divisions. Under our current setup, everybody knows what division they’re going to be competing against,” DeBoard said. “We take our schools and we divide them evenly by enrollment and we apply continued success. So if somebody has been really successful … they get moved up to their division. But ultimately, for the most part it’s enrollment based. When you are in a certain column, you are compared to other schools in that column. You’re not compared to other schools within your league anymore once you qualify for the playoffs.”

While it no longer applies to football, the league championship rule does still determine the playoff divisions for other fall, winter and spring sports.

“We do feel the league championship rule works pretty well in most every other sport, but it created a lot of moving parts and a lot of confusion in football,” DeBoard said. “If that happened in other sports, honestly, I think we would take a look at it, but it ... happens very seldom.”

How it has played out

The Trans Valley League is regarded by most as one of the best small school football leagues in California. For years, though, the league has not been able to reach its full potential at the section level because multiple teams played in the same division.

From 2019 to 2022, Hilmar and Escalon kept one another from a blue banner. The Cougars saw the Yellowjackets in the 2019 Division VI section finals and in 2021 the two matched up again for D-V title. Escalon won both. Last season, the schools controversially met in the second round of the Division V playoffs, and Escalon won that matchup, too.

This year, both teams will have the chance to win their own individual titles. Because of the elimination of the league champion rule combined with the section’s continued success rule, Escalon (No. 1 in Division IV) and Hilmar (No. 3 in Division V) will compete in different divisions. The league will have a chance at a third blue banner with Hughson competing in Division VI as the No. 4 seed.

If Hughson wants to repeat as a section champion, there is a possibility it will have to face No. 2 Sonora. The Wildcats consistently have won the Mother Lode League title, pushing them into the Division V playoff bracket. This season, the powerhouse that is listed as Division VI by enrollment remains in D-VI.

Division II normally is stacked because a lot of the schools with the best athletics in the section don’t have the largest enrollments. This year, the division in which Downey High is the No. 10 team is even deeper with the addition of schools that won Division I leagues.

St. Mary’s, winner of the Division I Tri-City Athletic League, advanced to last season’s D-I quarterfinals as the No. 2 seed. This year, the Rams are the No. 1 seed in D-II. Jesuit, out of the Sacramento area, will be in the same situation. The last time the Marauders won the Delta League, a D-I league, in 2021, they were moved up to the Division I playoffs. Last season, after finishing 5-1, they competed in D-II. After going 6-0 and winning the Delta League again this season, they are the No. 3 team in Division II.

“They’ve added to the strength that is D-II,” DeBoard said. “There’s a bunch of schools that are all pretty close to each other as far as enrollment goes that are going to be competing against each other.

“There is some movement here and there, but for the most part they’re going to know who they’re playing. And in a perfect world you want your playoff system to be as simple as possible.”