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The562’s coverage of football in 2023-24 is sponsored in part by the MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center Foundation and Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital Foundation
We’re entering the third year of the new CIF-SS playoff format, and Long Beach teams made five CIF-SS championship appearances over the last two years under the competitive equity system. Clearly it’s been a big benefit to local schools with several teams making historic first title game appearances.
The trick with the new system is that divisions are decided at the end of the year, with a team’s CalPreps ranking used to determine which division they’re in. Those rankings go up and down each week via CalPreps’ computer formula, so consider this a snapshot after the first third of the season to see where a team’s fortunes currently lie.
No team will know what playoff division they’re going to be in until that last day of the year–but following the rankings gives a good ballpark. This is not an exact science since not every team in the rankings makes the playoffs, and there’s no set number of teams in Division 1–if it’s a four team bracket versus an eight team bracket that will change how many teams are taken off the top before the 16-team brackets Division 2-14 are assembled.
These projections go off a 10-team Division 1, which is how many teams made that bracket last year. The top three Moore League teams qualify for the playoffs, while anyone else has to apply for an at-large. St. Anthony is in the Del Rey League, where they’d need to finish in the top two to get an automatic qualifier for the playoffs.
A final reminder that these are not our rankings but the rankings taken from CalPreps.com’s power rankings–these are the numbers used to assemble CIF-SS playoff Divisions at the end of the year. You can see the whole list here.
Remember, these numbers will go up and down a lot this year–wins will move them up, losses will move them down. We’ll keep you updated and break down what the weekly changes mean.
Long Beach Poly: No. 5
The Jackrabbits held steady at No. 5 after their bye week. Poly’s rating is 62.5, well below Corona Centennial at No. 4 (78.6) but not much above O Lu and Santa Margarita below them (61.4 and 60.2 respectively). Poly will play highly-ranked Millikan this week but then play the lower-ranked teams in the Moore League, so we expect them to drop in rating and ranking. Whether they still end up in Division 1 will depend on how far they fall, as well as how many teams the Southern Section takes for the top division.
Millikan: No. 27
Millikan dropped a few spots after a blowout win over Wilson and rose a few spots after a comfortable win over Jordan. The Rams are still more highly-ranked than any other non-Poly Moore League team in the modern playoff format. They’d currently project into the top of Division 3.
Jordan: No. 87
Jordan’s loss to Millikan has them down eight spots, and they’d now be No. 13 in Division 6 if they make the playoffs.
Lakewood: No. 125
Lakewood actually drops two spots after beating Cabrillo comfortably, because of the Jags’ low rating affecting their strength of schedule. Lakewood would be at the top of Division 9 and poised for a deep playoff run just like they had last year should they make the playoffs.
St. Anthony: No. 171
The Saints got a big win over Desert but because that team is low-ranked St. Anthony actually dropped eight spots; they now project in Division 12 if they made the playoffs.
Wilson: No. 200
The Bruins moved up 14 spots after getting a win over Compton and have climbed out of Division 14–they’d now be in Division 13 as the No. 14 seed.
Compton: No. 276
Compton dropped nine spots and currently project in Division 14.
Cabrillo: No. 330
The Jags moved down 13 spots and currently project in Division 14.
