Drastic OC football re-leaguing plan for 2024 gets mixed reactions from coaches

Photo: Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone

Eight Orange County high school football coaches provided mixed reactions when asked by OC Sports Zone about the proposed re-leaguing plan proposed for the 2024 season.

Teams will remain in their current leagues for 2023, but after that a new plan would be in place if given final approval, largely based on a team’s record the previous two seasons.

Teams would be part of the Orange County Conference and be divided up into leagues. It would consist of 69 Orange County teams that play 11-man football.

Trinity League schools will not be part of the conference and that league will remain the same.

Here’s what some OC coaches had to say about the plan:

PORTOLA

League: Pacific Valley

Coach Peter Abe: “While we won’t know exactly what the new OC football leagues will look like until after the 2023 post-season, we have a blueprint for putting together leagues with better competitive equity.  Any of the traditional city, old league, rivalry games would have to be scheduled in the preseason if certain schools are not in your new league, but that’s OK (at least in our situation).  Depending on how the IUSD schools fair, I’m sure the schools will still continue to play each other, but scheduling remaining preseason games will be a challenge, as many/most teams you likely would have already been scheduling/playing prior to league for competitive equity will already be in your new league/potential division.

“There is no perfect solution that will appease all invested parties, but the approved plan helps to get us closer to more appropriately scheduled games across the county.  Don’t know exactly how to feel about it until we give it a go. Ask me in 2025, and will have better answers for if this wild shake-up was a great idea or not, haha.  Until then, Bulldogs will keep our head down and continue to work to get better one day at a time, one play at a time.”

GODINEZ

League: Pac-4

Coach Aron Kaye: “For rebuilding programs like us it’s going to be a really good thing.  It gives us a chance to compete against like teams and that’s going to make it much better for all of us to rebuild.  Overall, it’s going to lead to some incredibly competitive leagues and the last two to three weeks of the season are going to be real interesting with many meaningful games being played across most of the leagues.  That should be a heck of a lot of fun for the players, coaches and fans.”

IRVINE

League: Pacific Coast

Coach Tom Ricci: “I have to admit, I’m opposed to it for multiple reasons. The first being that it will take away city rivalries that have gone on for multiple years.  We have played Uni and Woodbridge dating back to when I went to Irvine, and now that may not be the case.  Another reason is that us vs. Woodbridge and other city schools pack our stadium and inflate our gate. If we are playing teams out of the city that don’t travel well, that will cut into our gate and that becomes a money issue. 

“Another thing most people didn’t think about is that if the teams in our league are put in that league by rank, beating or losing to those teams won’t affect our Calpreps ranking much. That will lead to us potentially playing the same teams in playoffs because playoffs us the same algorithm.  

“Lastly I think this is great for top division teams who are always good or lower division teams who always struggle, but for us middle division teams, we can’t sustain year in and year out.  So we have a good year, we could get put in a difficult league as that team graduates. Then we have to get slammed for the next two years until re-leaguing happens again.  It will be a vicious cycle of do well for two years, get crushed for two years, get re-leagued and do well again.  I just don’t agree with it.”  

CYPRESS

League: Empire

Coach Rick Feldman: “The good part is what may be competitive equity.  The parts that are concerning:  Loss of rivalries and traditional league championships (which are always a big deal), geography of the new leagues (we would be playing San Clemente in a league game if it started this year), finding non-league games (the teams in our new league are the teams we play now), and teams that have a good couple of years, rebuild in a stacked league and lose, then move down with a really good team At the end of the day, whatever they think is best I’m willing to try.”

CREAN LUTHERAN

League: Empire

Coach Rick Curtis: “I believe that the Orange County representatives (athletic directors and principals) have come up with a good plan for working toward competitive equity for the football leagues in Orange County. The drawback as mentioned is not having your natural rivalries within league play, however, schools will have the ability to continue playing within their pre-season schedule. 

“Overall, I support the proposal and am excited to see how it plays out for the first two years and what the CIF playoffs look like after each season of play.” 

SEGERSTROM

League: Big Four

Coach Joseph Tagaloa: “I think the new way of leaguing should create some exciting match ups that we haven’t necessarily seen playout because of the contracts already established from traditional leagues. Our league is very competitive with Marina, Katella, and Garden Grove. However, before that re-leaguing, we used to play Westminster. The game vs. Westminster for several years would be for the league title and we had some battles, but now we don’t get to play anymore. With the new re-leaguing we will have a chance to create that type of atmosphere between opponents since we are all going to be very similar on paper.

“I do get the concern for rivalries, which obviously can still be arranged in the preseason if need be, but our program doesn’t really have a rival. We are too young of a program and have changed league opponents too frequently to really have a true rival. I am looking forward to the change overall because I think we can compete with most programs across the county, but there is only one way to truly see how we match up and that is to play.

“I’m excited about the new challenges that the re-leaguing should bring, but obviously we must focus on this season. Preparation for this season is underway and our team is looking forward to getting out there and competing. With the results of this season accounting for a larger percentage of our placement, our seniors are excited that their legacy will have an impact on the next two seasons.” 

WOODBRIDGE:

League: Pacific Valley

Assistant coach Rick Gibson (Aaron Craver, head coach): “I like the change; it’s nice that CIF is trying to help with competitive equity. It will be interesting to see if the metrics they use will work. On the other side,  I am hopeful that city rivalries will be played regardless of the league affiliations.”

WESTERN

League: Orange

Coach Dan Davidson: “I would rather have a more consistent opponent and league each year. I like to create rivalries and tradition. However, this is an attempt to create an equal balance between teams. This shouldn’t be a quick fix, but an actual true process if it’s going to work.” 

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 —Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com