Big changes coming to PAL football

The biggest change in the five-division league will be how the divisions are aligned. For the 2022 season, the divisions were based on geography, so the Bay Division looked like previous Bay Divisions and the De Anza Division, formerly the top in the SCVAL, remained the same.

Beginning next season, the division alignment will be based on a power-point system. League coaches voted last week to the change and the new divisions will look like this:

Bay Division: Burlingame, Los Gatos, Menlo-Atherton, Mountain View, Sacred Heart Prep and Wilcox.

De Anza Division: Half Moon Bay, Homestead, King’s Academy, Menlo School, Palo Alto and Terra Nova.

Ocean Division: Aragon, Capuchino, Hillsdale, San Mateo, Sequoia and Milpitas.

El Camino Division: Carlmont, El Camino, Fremont-Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Santa Clara and Woodside.

Lake Division: Cupertino, Gunn, Jefferson, Lynbrook, Mills, Monta Vista, Saratoga and South City.

“A vote was made by coaches to go strictly power. [The new structure] passed overwhelmingly,” said Steve Sell, Aragon football coach who was also on the PAL football committee.

“We knew this was a possibility. There were just too many blowouts in both the De Anza and El Camino divisions (this season).”

One of the main reasons for the leagues to merge last year was to improve competitive equity. It worked in the Ocean and Lake divisions, as neither of those divisions had running clocks. It was a bit surprising, however, to have lopsided games in the upper divisions.

“The Lake didn’t have any geography (restrictions). The places we ran into mismatches was where we tried to combine strength and geography and it just didn’t work.”

The above alignment is still tentative, however, as Sell said there are some schools appealing their placement. Sell said an appeals committee is being assembled and will make a decision at a meeting Dec. 5.

“At that point, the schedules will be approved and after that it should be set,” Sell said.

Other than the juggling of schools and divisions, the 2023 season will have some similarities to this season. Teams will still play crossover games with like teams and the traditional rivalry games will remain in place as well.

Sell said one of the sticking points was how to allocate the PAL’s 13 automatic Central Coast Section playoff bids. This past season, both the Bay and De Anza Division earned four automatic bids, the Ocean and El Camino got two and the Lake champion got the final playoff berth.

For 2023, five of the six teams in the Bay Division will get automatic bids. Three bids go to the De Anza Division, two each to the Ocean and El Camino, and Lake continues with one.

Sell said the biggest hurdle was juggling competitive equity during the league season, while also keeping an eye on how the playoff breakdown would work.

“There was a lot of discussion about how to break down the [automatic qualifiers],” Sell said. “It was one of those things like hard focus and soft focus. You want the hard focus on what impacts the most kids, but everyone also had an eye on how it impacts the playoffs.

“The hard focus is on weeks 1 through 11 and a soft focus on the playoffs.”

While he agrees that the new alignment is best for the league as a whole, Sacred Heart Prep head coach Mark Grieb admitted he liked the previous format.

“I understand the rationale for the system that we voted on and why they voted that way because it does a better job of putting teams in the division closer, in terms of competitive equity,” Grieb said. “But I like the traditional matchups of the Bay Division we had. … I think there are probably more than six teams that can compete in the [Bay Division]. There are other reasons why we don’t (do that).

“But that’s just not the landscape. The landscape is people are trying to make sure teams have other teams, who are at their level, to compete against.”

Grieb said growing the game is about familiarity and believes school communities get fired up to face teams with which they are familiar. While Los Gatos and Wilcox are fantastic football programs, Grieb said he will miss the games with teams that the Gators have developed a tradition with.

“I like the rivalries that come with (playing the same) teams. We’ve played Half Moon Bay every I’ve been here and next year we won’t play them,” Grieb said. “To me, I think high school sports is local. That’s the interest. That’s what I would keep it as. When you say let’s combine these leagues from San Jose to almost San Francisco, you’ve really stretched the boundaries of what is local.”

Sell said he understands that change is never easy to accept, especially when the PAL just made a huge change with the merger. He said convincing school administrators might be the toughest job because they’ll want to know, “What happens when your neighbor is not in the same division with you?” Sell asked.

Ultimately, the goal is to make every team and every game as competitive as possible. This new structure is just the latest in that evolution. It doesn’t mean everyone is happy.

“I would say there is going to be somebody who is going to be livid (about the new changes),” Sell said. “Somebody who is going to be super unhappy, no matter where this ends up.”

Said Grieb: “I’m a little more conservative by nature. I’d say let’s adopt a system and stay with it for a while and see how it goes. … I don’t think there is [one] right answer. There are a lot of right answers.”