In what turned out to be a wild final weekend of CCS action, we had to wait until late Saturday night to complete the playoff picture as Monte Vista Christian and Seaside battled
into triple overtime to settle the PCAL-Mission title. Seaside won, creating a tri-championship along with Monte Vista Christian and Alisal.
Because of the late nature of the projections, in this update we will just focus on getting the teams in the field. We will look to add more commentary as we move closer to the Sunday
morning CCS meeting.
Just for starters, Branham, Serra and MVC all had perfect league seasons ruined on the final weekend, forcing three-way ties for the title in the BVAL-Santa Teresa, WCAL and PCAL-Mission,
respectively. The loss to St. Ignatius did not affect Serra's overall number one seeding accoring to our projections.
Milpitas locked itself into the playoff field with a big win over Palo Alto to finish in a three-way tie for third in the SCVAL-De Anza. Only four automatic bids come from the SCVAL-DA
but Milpitas will get in as an at-large team for sure now.
Gunn will likely miss out on the playoffs after losing to Homestead in its finale, dropping to third place behind automatic qualifiers Saratoga and Homestead. Other than that, not much
happened on the final weekend of the CCS season!
Here is a review of how the new bylaws for the CCS football playoffs work. The new playoff format is highly dependent on rankings supplied
by CalPreps. We won't go into great detail here, but the bylaws are available
here (PDF).
Instead what we will do is give a brief rundown of the new system. As has been the case the past several years, there will be 40 CCS playoff teams. It is how those teams are selected
that has gone through a massive change.
Of the 40, 33 teams will receive automatic bids based on their finish in their respective league standings. The five "A" leagues will produce four automatic bids each, with the
remaining 13 berths coming from the various "B" and "C" leagues throughout the section. In general, "B" leagues will get two bids and "C" leagues one bid.
For the most part, the CCS point calculation is the same as it has been for the past few years with one addition: teams get additional credit for playing teams in the CalPreps Top 150
California ranking: 2 points for a team ranked in the top 100 and 1 point for a team ranked 101-150. Furthermore, teams outside of CCS are classified as "A", "B" and "C" teams based on
their CalPreps ranking.
The 10 best at-large point totals are put into a pool and then their CalPreps rankings are taken into account to choose the top 7. Once the entire field of 40 is selected,
a weighted score of the teams' CalPreps ranking and their CCS point total is produced and then the top 8 teams go to Division 1, the next 8 to Division 2 and so on down to
Division 5.
Note: Lincoln would have earned a spot in the field, but the Lions do not participate in CCS playoffs because of their commitment to the annual Big Bone Game against
San Jose on Thanksgiving Day.
NOTE: Adjusted CCS points are in parentheses and the projected home team is listed in CAPS.
DIVISION 1
If we needed more proof that it is extremely difficult to run the table in the WCAL, St. Ignatius provided the latest evidence, handing Serra its first loss of the season.
The loss will have no impact on the Padres' seeding as they are still clearly the No. 1 overall seed in the CCS field. The net result for SI, though, is a first-round home
game according to our projection.
We have Half Moon Bay and Los Gatos in a virtual tie for the No. 8 overall seed, but Half Moon Bay has the higher CalPreps ranking. It's a huge difference travelling to Serra
for a first-round game or taking the No. 1 seed in Division 2 and a home game most likely against Sacred Heart Prep.
Here's a brief look at the at-large teams that made it based on our CCS point calculations and the first five that would be left out based on our
projection process. This only includes teams that meet the top six in league requirement (actual CCS points in parentheses - not combined with CalPreps rankings points). Note:
the point totals are not in necessarily in order because the at-large teams are selected by a combination of CCS points and weighted ranks based on CalPreps.
