CIF-SS Playoffs: Santa Fe-Muir two-minute drill

It's time to summarize what happened over at Pioneer Stadium tonight. Basically speaking, it was a repeat of the Chiefs' tendency to fade under the pressure of an agressive, talented playoff team. An ominous recent development in this Santa Fe trend has been to effect this collapse in the very first week of competition, on their home field.

For those of us who are long-time witnesses to this annual dump-taking, tonight was not a surprise. I'm pretty confident, however, that the sportswriters (who all took Santa Fe) will be incredulous with wonder at just how this could have happened.

My innermost thoughts on Santa Fe's teams tell me that they are built, and are content, to simply win the Del Rio title. Local bragging rights are paramount with Jack Mahlstede, whose scope of vision extends no farther than an 8 mile radius from the Orr & Day campus.

And so we arrive at the night of departure for the old coach. As I was leaving Pioneer Stadium tonight, I heard the public address announcer trying to gather attention to announce the milestones of Jack's football career. Sadly, or perhaps appropriately, nobody seemed to care.

Santa Fe has some great coaches and some not so great....and in the not so great includes Jack Malhstede!! Why is that, what has he really done to promote great athletes.....absolutely nothing!! I hear about other football players getting scouted and scholarships and its because those coaches cared enough to make it happend. I take that back he's only been promoting his grandson Christian. I will say the kid can play football, but he's not a super-star. Jack could've had a chance to win his first CIF title last year.....but didn't all because he had his grandson quarterback and messed up big time. How many fumbles and errors did he do, lots of them!! Jack & Christian Malhstede caused Santa Fe to loose against West Covina and their chances to win CIF. I will always support Santa Fe and wish the boys good luck.

I couldnt agree anymore i played at santa fe and seen good santa fe teams this years team wouldnt even rank in the top 10 of all time ... With good coaching over the years santa fe could have ran off so many cif titles with the talent it has had ... If santa fe gets past muir i see them making the semis maybe the finals but will get spanked by west co

Finally someone on this blog with some knowledge and especially about Santa fe.. I couldn't agree more!

I wasn't going to comment on this Santa Fe - Muir matchup, because in the broader scheme of things, it's a non-event. With the plethora of top-shelf high school football games available for viewing tomorrow night, it's a certainty that only those who NEED to be at Pioneer Stadium will show up.

But when I heard Tolegian say that he had Santa Fe going to the FINALS, I had to speak up and restore some sanity to the proceedings.

Clue number one for the Santa Fe hopefuls: after all these decades of perfecting the Santa Fe football program, they have reached the pinnacle of competing in DIVISION SEVEN. A truly great coach, presiding over a truly great program, surely wouldn't be spending the waning days of his storied career walking the sidelines of an eyesore like Pioneer Stadium.

Clue number two for the Chief's cheer group: When the Chiefs played its three super-tough opponents in the preseason, they couldn't compete even with those teams' SECOND AND THIRD STRING PLAYERS. That's right, the Yellow-and-black couldn't even muster a FIELD GOAL against any of those three teams, even when they had most of the second half to operate against the scrubs. The Santa Fe defense likewise continued to
get steamrolled by those teams' offensive subs as well.

The last and most telling piece of the puzzle comes to us in the fact that in all these decades of playing lower division ball, with all the giddy hopefulness surrounding each new season, the Chiefs have exactly ZERO rings to show for it all. To anyone with a microgram of brains, that should tell a devastating tale.

Aram has Santa Fe going to the finals; me too, but I'm saying it will be via private cars, not school buses.