True dat Mince, the HS Hoops coverage has been weak so far. Is it all Arams fault, how much space do they allow him to have in each days paper?.....Can we at least the final scores from each days action in the various local tournaments?....Steve Hunt did do mighty fine job!

True dat Mince, the HS Hoops coverage has been weak so far. Is it all Arams fault, how much space do they allow him to have in each days paper?.....Can we at least the final scores from each days action in the various local tournaments?....Steve Hunt did do mighty fine job!

Aram,
You are weak! Anyone that knows you laughs at you. Way to make Tribune Prep Sports insignificant. You don't cover high school basketball, the area's greatest tradition. Steve Hunt would cover the Covina Christmas Tournament to a tee and include all-tournament teams in the news. You miss all the rivalries, those I won't post here, cuz I don't want to do your job for you. Go back to Temple City and stop acting like you know something about sports. Playing Video games doesn't qualify you to report on SGV sports! Get lost you loser!

Amat is consistently the best head-to-head football team in the entire SGV. Unless something drastic happens, Amat should consistently be ranked number 1 in the local polls, even if they finish 5-5. However, I would be shocked if any former Amat players even cared about local rankings. This is a program was consistently atop the state rankings in the 1990's...what happened?

For lack of better words, Amat has become a 'tweener. Too good for the SGV, but not good enough to win a Division 1 schedule, not even strong enough to place third in the Foothill League.

Amat may not return to where everybody thinks it should be until it gets aggressive within its admissions office and gets a handful of 8th graders who have been identified as future D-1 athletes and solid kids. Was the last Title in 1995 when Ralph Brown carried the load through the playoffs, with Brian Pollack flattening the d-line up front? Pollack was a junior that year, but there were a couple other guys who were in the 6'3 to 6'5 neighborhood as well. The year before in '94, Amat was loaded, but lost to Mater Dei in the finals. That team was led by Minor, McCutcheon and Huma among others, with the jr. Brown playing in the secondary. My point is that it is a stretch to forsee Amat beating all of those D-1 farms unless they have plenty of horses as well.

Aram should almost have a ranking that excludes Amat all together.

I know that Amat has a lot of tradition and pride, but I wonder at what point Amat would consider moving out of the Pac-5 and into a more manageable division. Dropping divisions or changing admissions practices may be the only way to get back into the Title hunt.

Amat will rule the roost of the SGV next year. This will be a special team and barring no major injuries this is going to be one strong team coming out to compete next year. They learned allot from watching that Notre Dame team dismantle them by being in total condition. The players are building themselfs up right now and are working hard to come back in the best physical shape possible. They are also working at home or a near by Gym as they are on Christmas Vacation......Look for a different team next year. Seniors that played this year really gave it their all but it was just one of those years of transition of a new coach and new league......things will be different and Amat will again be on top. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our Amat Backers here in the blog. Amat, Gentleman and Lady bloggers if any in here , take note we will be back next year with a take no prisioners vengence. This will be a team on a mission. There is only one King in the SGV and everyone knows it is Bishop Amat!..........Might Are The Men That Wear The Blue And Gold.!!!....ON BLUE!

Private advantage,

You are right about private vs. public schools. Bishop Amat has no business playing the local schools in the SGV because they are indeed not restricted to anything. This is the reason why Amat does not normally schedule SGV teams unless of course, it's to separate itself from the other local schools. Amat did this last season and one before and came out undefeated. This is not to say that a SGV team could not beat Amat. Glendora almost caught a rebuilding Amat squad the year before last. But most years, Amat would rule.

This year is a perfect example. Amat fans consider this year a crappy one with such a young defense and coaching staff. And yet, Amat proved that it could compete and beat any team in the SGV.

The schools that Amat normally schedules are indeed, football farms. This year was a good example with Valencia, Hart, Carson, etc. These are public schools and the right public school that has the right connections and has the cash to throw into their football program can create unstoppable programs. Long Beach Poly, Edison, Mission Viejo are all farms and public yet these teams find their players every year.

Bishop Amat represents the best of the San Gabriel Valley. It's Amat that fights these farms head to head every year. Win or lose Amat competes againts the best and will continue to do so.

Amat is the rock that Orange County smashes into when they come to the San Gabriel Valley.

Oh yeah...We got Riverside and San Bernardino Counties covered too!

Mighty Are The Men That Wear Blue And Gold!

Why do coaches get to move without any penalty and the players don't? Anyone worried about the band trumpet player tansferring to another school to play jazz? Yeah it's all about the kids, sure it is. Let there be open transfers between schools and put those schools willing to accept those conditions in the "OPEN DIVISION" league playoffs. Like athletic "magnet" schools only for athletics instead of academics or the arts. Seems fair to me? The preseason they can schedule anyone they want and play anyone willing to compete against "OPEN DIVISION" schools but league and playoffs it'll be "OPEN VS. OPEN". Beats teaching the parents how to cheat the system and showing kids that winning at all cost is the way to go.

Come on Joe Amat,

Why is it all of you Amat supporters tend to lesson the advantage of private school recruitment vs public schools inability to attract athletes from outside the schools borders.
No one here is talking about the CIF rules on transfers, were speaking to the fact that public schools, for the most part, are bound and restricted on enrollment within their own community by their own school boards.

Answer this question: How many Amat students actually live in La Puente? How many Damien students actually live in La Verne? Now, answer this: How many Diamond Bar High School students live in Diamond Bar or how many Glendora High School students live in Glendora? No suprise here. Private School's attract the cream of the crop without boundries or restrictions. And, for the most part, public schools are limited to only the athletes that enroll from within their own community. Which universe is larger?

Lets stop with the CIF BS! Hey, 1 or 2 players may transfer to a public school from outside of the district. But, again, what was Amat's enrollment from outside La Puente? Did you say 90%? Of course the exception (not the rule) may be a school like Canyon or perhaps Mission V. On the most part, though, no public school recruits like Amat. Yes, Amat had a bad year. But, not because they stopped recruiting.

New York,

Seperating private and public is'nt really the answer.

In California private schools cannot really do ANYTHING that public schools can not do, In the eyes of CIF ANY kid can go to ANY school as a freshmen - regardless of residency. ANY kid can transfer to ANY school as long as he meets the residential requirements (change of address, sitting out a year of varsity, etc). These restrictions are the same with public to private, private to private, private to public - ANY combination that you choose. At the end of the day, private schools then have one additional hurdle that public schools do not - tuition. Some schools may choose to assist in that hurdle but most never remove it, only lower it (as they will with any student in need-not just athletes)

A public school can promote/recruit/attract student athletes as well as the next guy. If I am Harry Welch, the coach of "state champion" Canyon Country, as long as I build a great program that players want to come to and cheat better than the next guy (and HW is a proven and convicted cheater by the CIF) then I can attract enough players to knock off a DeLaSalle.

Why does everybody hate OC? It sounds like the same complaints that Amat endured in the early and mid 1990's when it was a national power. I bet Orange Lutheran takes the same heat down there, as does Mater Dei. Sure, some of these programs are like junior colleges. That's what happens when kids don't have to play for their local team. That's fine.

I think that the real answer is to have all the private schools play each other. Of course, that is not a new idea, but I'm not sure why parochial schools are not separated. There are some states that separate public from private.

OK Vanner and Enough said I'll let it go, I guess its the postseason football withdrawls that I must be going thru, let alone the shoulda, coulda woulda once in every 10 year potential season that we didn't have this year, its tough but I'll get over it, hurry up septemper.

Does Amat HAVE to monopolize every football topic?

Better yet Amat schedule Norco, Canyon Country, Mission Viejo instead of Charter Oak, Los Altos,Ranco Cucamonga and South Hills. What does that prove?

Give it a rest with "We're the Best in the Valley" nonsense. This Valley only has one "dominant" team...and you're on a 3 year slide. Dominant teams don't limit themselves to beating Div 6,7 or 8 teams. I can tolerate the bragging but to put every area team and coach down in the Valley? ....to do so is classless.

Give props to Bogan, Farrar and Gano at least they produce good "teams", win Championships, produce Div I college players and are LOYAL to their schools even when they have had chances to go elsewhere.(Amat's list of former coaches that "left" for greener pastures or $$$$ is too long to list) When was the last Amat coach that stayed longer that one contract? Must have been the obnoxious parents and out of control Alumni that made them want to stay. What ever happened to DiFiori?

Get a grip Amat. When you bounce back and I hope you do...come back as a gracious King rather than a childish...King of the Hill moron.

All you people who think your team is better then Amat. Then why are your coachs not putting them on the schedule? Oh maybe it is cause Amat is still the best team in the valley. I am not a Amat fan, but am a realist. CO got smart and got out of that contract. Bogan and Gano have knowen it for as long as their tenure has been.

great point "prep league fan"...i totally forgot the city section and the SD section. But that would be an easy fix, you place the championship division winner of the city playoff into the division 1-4 criteria and the invitational winner into the div 5-8 or 9-13 criteria, their choice. The championship bracket in the city is usually the top teams with the invitational bracket, the next best 16. how to coordinate the SD section, i would have no idea, am not too knowledgable on that part of the CIF.
just food for thought....
P.S...again, you are right, Oaks would have still been the DIII rep in the bowl game under my format, but wouldnt it have been interesting if CIF would have had to pick between OLU, CC Canyon, Norco, and JW north...would have been some upset folks. Personally, i think they just made it easy on themselves with there format.

I am the ORIGINAL Bleeds Blue and Gold, accept no substitutions.

Aram, I am aware that all are not created equally but how many of these bloggers talk their crap about their ablilty to beat Amat or the season we had? I know, I lived it.

My point is to bring on all takers, talkers, and finger waggers. Let the final score do the talking.

Hey Dan,
I'll tell you W.C. is a scary team that can get up for anyone! but you know that. But we all know until you make some noise in your respective divisions bragging about anything else is meaningless. Go San Antonio !

DAN

Let it go man. It's just not worth it.

Aram you even said it before & you were right, The whole key to West Co was having their skill players & as you know they didn't have their top
three except for one of them for half of the game vs Rancho C.plus their starting corner & one of their lineman were out so you know better than to use that game as a comparison. I stand by my conviction that their week 1 line up beats any other teams week 1 line up in the valley, especially if you consider how they would jell together over the course of the season.

Bleeds,

It's not just Bogan's opinion, comparative scoring backs it up. West Covina got waxed by Rancho, South Hills lost to Rancho and Amat beat Ranch by 10.

St. Francis beat LA by 7, Amat beat SF in OT with a shell of its team.

I'm not saying there wouldn't be a close game, here or there, I'm just saying that you're denying reality if you think that Amat wouldn't be heavily favored against any of these teams.

The bottom line is that about eight or nine local teams had a better season than Amat, and that's because not everyone is created equally.

Some Info Please

No, all 13 winners did not play in a bowl game. Also remember there are 13 section champions for just the southern section. Champions from the LA City section, Central Section, Central Coast Section, and San Diego Section were also eligible to represent the south in the bowl games and only three (which happened to all be from the southern section) were selected. The teams were selected in a meeting with all 10 section commissioners.

The state CIF, which runs the state bowl games, delegates the responsibility for determining section champions to the ten regional sections. In all sports that compete for a state championship the state (not necessarily section) divisions are based on enrollment, so they did the same for football. Ohio is the only major football state that has an open division champion, and even then the schools that are placed into the open division are done by computer rankings. Even Texas bases their state champion divisions on school size.

CIF-SS knows it schools well enough to place them in relativity competitive brackets without school size as the only determining factor. For what its worth, Oaks Christian (Div 10 in CIF-SS) would still have been a division 3 school based on anti 17's criteria.

So no, the system does not guarantee a one vs two matchup, and by all accounts now that the games have been played the best team in the state is either the Division II winner Orange Lutheran or Grant from Sacramento that was not invited because De Le Salle was more highly thought of.

Unless you are willing to go to 16 week seasons and play football until Christmas this is about the best system their is. Just think what a 16 week season would do to these players bodies, not to mention the impact it would have on the schools winter season athletic teams. And remember, the match up everybody wanted, Oaks Christian vs De Le Salle, would probably have given us a relatively easy De Le Salle victory and never shown that they could be beaten by a southern section D-IV champion.

I am the ORIGINAL Bleeds Blue and Gold, accept no subsitutions.

After reading Aram post from yesterday, it seems that Bogan knows what he sees.

How about we start lining up valley teams right now for next year so we can prove his point?

Anti17

Not a bad idea.

CIFSS is wacked! Not to mentioned the NW region is messed up!

If they can do the job in Texas, why not here?

what i dont understand is why does CIF use an enrollment based criteria to select the state bowl representatives, but they do not do this to coordinate each divison within the southern section. I mean if u are going to have a true division I representative and so on, why not use the old southern section format of division 1 thru 13 and if you are going to have 3 reps from each region for the bowl games, select one from division 1 thru 4, the next from disvision 5 through 8 and the last from division 9 thru 13. Am i the only one that thinks that this makes more logical sense and truly will bring out the real "best" team is the state. maybe that was CIF plan the whole time to re-name the divisions using geographical terms, instead of numerical divisions. kinda like their way of throwing out a smoke screen.
Jus my opinion on giving more schools a chance to be recognized, and crowning a true top notch champion from the upper echelon divisions. Would have way to hard to distinguish the DI rep between OLU, CC Canyon, Norco and JW North.

hey, the thing is this, i belive if you have more than 2700 kids at the school then u are in division 1 bowl game. from 2700 to 1200 i belive??is division 2 bowl game. and the rest is 1200 down to d3. oaks has like 400 kids, thats a d3 school. i belive that the only other "good" school out of d3 is st. bonnie, but they didnt win CIF, so they didnt qualify.

CMON GUYS!!LINDSEY SOTO WAS TALKING ON FSN THE WHOLE DAY AND U GUYS STILL DONT GET THE SYSTEM?

Prep League Fan

Did all 13 region winners play a bowl game or only a selected few?

I guess this really isn't a state champion by region just another game! How does OC get selected being a small school?

Seems like alott of politics!

Please advise

thank you

oh please, after seeing Aaron Corps of OLU i have high faith on that kid. he looked more impressive than clausen. good thing corp is going to USC and leading them to the championship game! Hear this from me, Corp is going to be better than Jimmy!!

What's not to love about Oaks Christian?Jimmy Clasuen is legit and really great....The only bowl game I cared to watch wa sOaks to watch Clausen.....He didn't play that greta but for a guy who threw three pics he looked pretty good....A tipped pass,a rollout where the ball floated on him, and then a desperation heave at the end of the 1st half on 4th down with 10 seconds left....Overall, he looks like he could be ready for college....I hope he goes to ND and steps in right away and leads them to a BCS bowl game.....Hopefully against UCLA!!!

ARAM : this ones for you!!.....we went to get our last high school football fix for the year .we got there at 9:30 am and left at 11:00pm ,I don't care what you think about the games ,they were all great ,just to be part of something that has'nt happened in 79ys was worth the effort of staying all day,rain what rain it rained for about 1/2hr. total all day,more like a drizzel,we sat on the the visitors side for all three games,we met some great fans from the north and talked about all the players and teams that did'nt make it to the big show,what a great day.I think your full of hot air when it comes to football ,for you it's just a job to cover the valley teams, your not a true high school fan like you tend to make the bloggers believe,you cover the local teams ,write your cheap articals ,and you get paid .maybe the tribune would not pay for your gas or ticket to get there,only you know,I can go on and on but I won't,I think you get the picture on how I feel.

I was talking to Coach Bogan earlier this season and we were discussing Rancho Cucamonga. Bogan had seen the tapes of Amat vs. Rancho Cucamonga, so I asked him "What did you think of Amat?"
His reply was "They'd beat anyone in the Valley."

Believe me, I saw all the teams and I'm pretty confident saying it. Amat may not have been very good in its area of the world, but it had size where it needed it, speed where there should be speed and just too much quality 1 thru 11 for any local team.

First you have to be a divisional champion. Eligibility for each division is based on school enrollment. The commissioners for each CIF section (ten in all) then get together and choose a north and south representative for each division based on the pool of qualified teams.

Aram

How do you get selected for these bowl games?

TO ALL SGV COACHES

PLEASE SEND ARAM YOU ALL LEAGUE SELECTIONS SO HE CAN POST. I KNOW YOUR ALL BUSY WITH THE HOLIDAYS, BUT IT WOULD BE NICE FOR THE KIDS TO BE RECOGNIZED!

Aram maybe you can email them if they don't respond!

Happy Holidays!!!!!!!

Aram -

You blew it buddy! Great day of football and all the games were very exciting to watch. Couldn't ask for a better day. So...shopping at Nordstroms huh .....wow....somebody is still very disgruntled about the Charter Oak game. lol! Now, who in the world could you be possibly shopping for at Nordstroms?? I better not read in the paper about how Lindsay Soto had a mysterious package left on her doorstep and now the FBI is involved.

If you truly are a high school football fan and beat writer, then you would have been at the games, otherwise it appears your only a SGV homer. Too bad....you missed some great football.

Petros rules! Fight On!

Aram ,
Sat on the souths side from 10:30 am through 10:30 pm. Kind of a football overload experiment. Have to say it was great to watch some great teams and players. No doubt Arron Corp is bad ass, way way better then Clausen. Corp was the second highest rusher on the day 136 yards behind de luiggi of Canyon by 3 yards ! In my opinion Orange Lutheran could beat any team there Saturday. Oh one other thing some of Canyon Fans showed no class booing the opposing team during introductions, and their own players after bad decisions on the field, Some were actually Chanting you suck to their own QB after a bad play!

I think it's because Oaks Christian represents everything people hate about private schools. For years, people have felt privates have an advantage being able to admit anyone and not having to pool from a certain district. Nobody exploits that more than the Lions. Now, I'm hearing about stuff like the OC coaches have connections to camps, which are basically becoming OC buffer factories. Amazing. You've got to hand it to Ole Bill and staff, they are hustlers.

Well I did make it down to the Home Depot Center for the first game, and half of the Orange Lutheron game and I had a great time. The first game was really good, and reminded me of the ND-UCLA game earlier this year. Newman had the game, outplayed them for the majority of the day, but one play cost them and allowed the game to go to OT instead of winning in regulation.

And you're right Aram, there is nobody who likes Oaks. I was sitting near the Newman fans and somebody asked me, "So are you from up North?" I said, "No, I just hate Oaks Christian." Apparently I wasn't the only one with that answer.