PAL-SCVAL football coaches gather for first time

“This is extremely exciting,” said Aragon head coach Steve Sell, who was the PAL coach who spear-headed the effort to merge the two leagues and led the meeting. The merger was proposed as a way to keep the weaker programs in both the PAL and SCVAL alive, as well as to help alleviate scheduling issues.

“This is an opportunity to do a lot things for a lot of kids,” Sell continued. “The goal is to have everyone play 10 games on the schedule and no running clocks.”

Tim Lugo, who took over the Mountain View football program this season after several years at Saratoga and was the SCVAL point person for the merger, was equally enthused.

“This has been a long time coming,” Lugo said. “I hope you’re as fired up as I am.”

With coaches and representatives seated at tables of the divisions in which the teams will play, there were several items covered.

The most important being that all games will be played under the auspices of the PAL bylaws, which differ slightly from the rules under which the SCVAL played.

The biggest change for the SCVAL schools will be the reduction of practice. SCVAL practices previously were up to three hours. They will be 2 1/2 hours under PAL rules. That includes film study and weight training outside of school hours.

Other changes included the number and amount of game film exchanged and the timeline in which to do so.

While SCVAL coaches were wrapping their heads around shorter practice time, they were happy to learn that they will have a lot more freedom in building their rosters.

Under SCVAL rules, once a player played a snap at the varsity level, that player was on the varsity team for the season.

The PAL, however, uses a system called “open access movement,” which means freshmen, sophomores and juniors can move between the junior varsity and varsity level throughout the season, while not exceeding 10 games played during the regular season.

For example, if a varsity team was going to be short on numbers a particular week, coaches could bring up players from JV squad to fill in and then return that player to the JV squad the following week with no penalty.

JV blues

A new high school is coming online in Santa Clara, McDonald High School, beginning this season and it will field a junior varsity football team.

Being a new program, it can be a struggle scheduling opponents, so Lugo suggested that if an established school was not planning on operating a JV squad, he said McDonald would step in and play that school’s JV schedule.

When Lugo asked if any schools were not planning on offering a JV team, there was dead silence.

After several seconds, a representative from Lynbrook, which will play in a newly formed Lake Division, indicated things were looking bleak for a JV team at his school.

Shortly thereafter, South City head coach Frank Moro said he was “unsure” about fielding a JV squad. El Camino and Jefferson coaches indicated they had between 15 and 20 players currently training as a JV team, but Jefferson head coach Sergio Portela Jr. was fairly certain his program would field a JV team.

“More kids usually show up on the first day of school,” Portela said. “I’m confident we’ll have one (a JV team).”

Lugo said it would be best for McDonald to play a Lake Division schedule and he would work with other school’s administrations to get something done for the fledgling program.

New rules

As happens during the preseason meeting, a representative from the local officiating group will present important new rules and clarifications of which coaches should be aware.

Mike Adam, chairman of the board for the Silicon Valley Sports Officials Association, made the presentation Tuesday night and most of the changes were minor.

One big rule change, however, changes the way “throwers” — mostly quarterbacks — can now, legally, throw the ball out of bounds to “conserve yardage.”

Previous to this season, high school quarterbacks were not allowed to throw the ball away purposefully to avoid a sack. That’s why all those years of fans screaming, “Throw the ball away!” never worked — it was illegal.

The new rule moves the high school game in line with the college and professional game. There is the caveat that the quarterback has to be outside the tackle box — the area from left tackle to right tackle — but otherwise, the rule now mirrors that of the higher levels.

Expanding skill work in offseason

Burlingame head coach John Philipopoulos wants to see more football work done during the offseason, arguing that nearly every other athlete in any other sport can play their chosen sport year ’round.

“All we can do is lift weights,” Philipopoulos said.

The Central Coast Section rule currently state that high school football teams can have 10 days of spring practice, or a system in which four athletes train football-specific skills with one coach: called 4x1.

CCS rules state teams can do one or the other, but not both.

“I think it’s a disservice to the kids,” Philipopoulos said. “ I think it would it would be a big help in working with the kids.

“If there was an avenue for kids to play football year ’round, I wouldn’t care (about the CCS rule).”

Sell asked for a motion to look into changing the rule, but also cautioned that it could be a messy situation. He said all it takes is for one voting group to decide spring football is unnecessary altogether and could scuttle what is currently in place.