I have to agree with you on several points here, but let me suggest an alternative. Six divisions makes playoffs meaningless. Is it still sixteen teams PER those six divisions? That is pure insanity.  A team that wins only two or three games ALL YEAR makes the playoffs. That is ridiculous, I agree. But here's the problem, Zach. Division II, III, and even possibly IV are having to compete against Division I teams in league. To me, THAT'S ridiculous. What's ridiculous is schools such as Foothill and Highland having to compete against BHS for a league title. You pointed out that there are schools that might have a student body of 1,800 compared to 2,700 and THAT is not a big discrepancy? I would beg to differ. When a school has to compete against other schools in its own league that have a student athlete pool 800 to 900 heads larger, something is very wrong.  I say reorganize the leagues and divisions all together. Put the Division I and II's together in one league and all the Division III's and IV's in another league and have the V's and VI's together in another league. So we not only condense Six leagues to three for playoffs, but also league play. GO back to smaller playoff system where only the top 8 in each of those three divisions make the playoffs. There's a method to this madness. Zach, if your looking only at a team's record and where they finished in league in the standings when they go into the playoffs, you might say, 'man, how did a 3-7 team make the playoffs!?!?!?'. Well, quite possibly its because two or three of their league losses were to teams that were a division or two higher.  Reorganizing schools into leagues where all the teams are of similar size means that their records and standings at the end of the year is a MORE ACCURATE reflection of how they are going to fair against those divisional opponents come playoffs. This would make seeding less controversial as well. A team's regular season record is more indicative of how they would do in the playoffs. That's not the case under this playoff system. Case in point: Put BHS in a league with Liberty, Stockdale, Edison, Clovis West, and Clovis East and see if they run away with THAT league title. No fair you say??? Well, realistically, those are the teams they may see in the playoffs. OK, Edision and STockdale are DII I think, but you get the point at least (I hope).  Where did East finish in league about about 4 years ago when THEY won Valley?

The size of the school don't matter.  Ridgeview is large and historically not a competitive school.  Garces is smaller in size and plays quite well with any team in the valley year in year out.  I'd rather see a smaller playoff pool and not reward teams for crappy seasons.  Playoffs should be earned and not a time for realy good teams to run up scores on teams that don't deserve to be there in the early rounds.

OK, point taken on school size.  However, lets talk about teams that are historically competitive compared to teams that are NOT. What is the difference maker. Demographics? Age of the program? Historical competitiveness? Lets face it francis, there are schools that will NEVER be able to put together a group of athletes the way other schools seem to do so each year with EASE.  I mean, can anyone really, honestly say that the talent pool for Highland or Foothill is the same as that of BHS? Heck no! It's about the talent pool!!!! Here's some other factors to consider why there needs to be more segregation of the teams in the Central Section: parents will MOVE into neighborhoods so their kids could go to certain schools. Its foolish to think this doesn't happen. Here's another problem. Boundaries change and new schools open so the socio-economics of a school change.  A community can build a youth program with the hope it will make the local high school competitive only to see those kids shipped off to the new school when the graduate 8th grade. How about the ability to bring on quality coaching staff? The shifting around of coaches should be proof of that. A schools legacy or history has a lot to do with who interviews for the coaching jobs. Do you really believe Paul Golla would have moved his family from Texas to coach at Arvin (no offense to the Bears)? I still say, if your going to separate them come playoffs, they should play separately from the get go. Playing schools that are historically and demographically comparable when it comes to athletics can mean a team might finish with a 4-2 league record compared to a 2-4. If they're 4-2 against similar teams, that's more indicative of how they will fare in the playoffs.

SO, how about this. Don't categorize them by size, but by how historically competitive the school is. A fare guage might be historic winnning percentage and consider school size as a secondary factor. I'm thinking what might result is a league consisting of Division I: BHS, Liberty, Stockdale, Centennial, Garces. Division II: North, West, South, Foothill, East, Highland . Division III: Frontier, Ridgeview, Arvin, Tehachapi (I don't follow the SSL quite as much...)

Why play nice here...some football programs just historically ARE NOT COMPETITIVE and may never be based on historic factors and demographics.

I like that idea. Let the teams play their less competitive schedules within their own leagues (like it's more or less done in the Fresno area), then make them step up and play with the big boys if they want to make noise come playoff time. The one problem I see is how you qualify from your league into the playoffs — do you allow the top three in no matter how competitve the league? Allow four or five from the D-I league but only two from the D-III league? I'm sure that could be ironed out, but it's worth a thought nonetheless.

One more note about switching up the leagues: It's not like smaller schools never compete in the SEYL and SWYL. Look at Highland and North this year, West the past several years or Ridgeview a couple of years ago. That's the athletic highlight of the decade for some of those schools and they might not actually want to move to another league.

No, no, no. Keep the DI's and maybe II's in the valley together in two or three leagues for league play-and then have them compete with eachother in the playoffs. Then keep the DIII's and IV's together in two or three leagues in the valley and then let THEM play eachother in the playoffs.....and so forth. My point is, I agree with Zach that there are too many divisions come playoffs. Condense it to three four. BUT LET LEAGUE PLAY REFLECT&n bsp;THOSE DIVISIONS. Don't wait until playoffs to divide them out. That to me is sillyness.  Have the league play be between teams WITHIN THE SAME DIVISION. Highland may be VERY competitive come playoffs. But, lets face it, they're only going to finish 3rd in league, because BHS and Liberty are in higher playoff divisions, hense, more competitive. Its like making the Condors face Anaheim, LA, and San Jose in the regular season to determine if they will qualify for the ECHL playoffs.

Patrick319 I'm sure it was just an oversight that you slighted Golden Valley when mentioning your new league formations. Leagues will be realigned for the 2010-2012 school years with the leading contender being three leagues.

BHS,LIBERTY,STOCKDALE,INDEPENDENCE,CENTENNIAL AND FRONTIER

NORTH,HIGHLAND,EAST,GARCES AND FOOTHILL

WEST,RIDGEVIEW,GOLDEN VALLEY,SOUTH AND MIRA MONTE

I think these league formations or going strictly by playoff divisions will take place.

I think it would be boring if all the local leagues were aligned to put teams together based on division placement. The six central section divisions are so small (11 teams in Division 1) that the playoffs would basically just be a replay of the regular season with the same teams facing off against each. The best part of Friday nights is seeing if a traditional non-power like South (D3) can beat a Centennial (1) or Ridgeview (D3) can beat Stockdale (D1).  Those games might not have even been scheduled if the leagues were broken up according to divsional placement. Secondly, the way the Central Section divisions are broken up is so arbitrary that using that for anything, no less a tool to for league placement, makes no sense. Every school in Bakersfield (other than Garces and BCHS) is relatively close in size with Ridgeview (2889) being the largest according the most recent data on the Central Section web site and Highland the smallest (2074). Those two schools are both in Division 3 so obviously size means little in guaging school athletic strength. Leagues should be broken down geographically within reason (like they are now with the SSL and SEYL/SWYL) and the central section divisions should be cut to just three and based soley on attendence figures. Having 11-15 schools per division cheapens winning a Central Section title.  

What's ridiculous is that people actually think that its ridiculous that Foothill with 2798 students has no business being in the same league with BHS (2715 students).  In 2006 the top top teams in the SEYL were Golden Valley and Garces (both D3) at the time. How much satisfaction do you think the kids on those teams got in beating BHS? Schools like Foothill may not have the same winning tradition of a BHS but how sweet is going to be (for them) when they win a SEYL crown? Last year East was in the running until Andre Smith got hurt.

Yes, my bad on Golden Valley. And again, I will correct myself: school size DOES NOT matter. But demographics do. Lets be blunt here Lynch: Foothill has a larger student body than BHS-BUT THEY WILL NEVER BE&nb sp;COMPETITIVE with BHS!!!! Where are families buying homes and sending their student athletes that have been pushed since pee-wee football-day one? Its NOT Foothill. They're moving into BHS district, Stockdale district, Centennial district, Liberty distric, and now Frontier. Why? because these football mom's and dads want their kids to play for a team with a history of WINNING! And, no, Foothill is not of the same caliber as BHS and may never be..Sorry. I know that is NOT politically correct, but its true. The success of a football program is not JUST about the kids on the field. Its about the WHOLE program within a community. North's current success, for instance can be attributed to a strong youth football system that puts them in pads by age 5 or 6. Not every community has that going in their own back yard. There are many factors that have nothing to do with school size. But the fact remains, there are huge inherent disparities between football programs and even coaching.

High School football shouldn't be some sort of social experiment. And the Central Section shouldn't construct leagues or divisions based on anything but geography and attendance figures. Life isn't fair and there will always been certain schools that are better than others at particular sports. High school football shouldn't be turned into a youth soccer league where everyone gets a trophy. Schools with 3,000 kids that stink at football shouldn't be "rewarded" by getting to play schools with 1,000 kids just to make things equitable because of unfavorable demographics. How fair is that smaller schools like Tehachapi that work hard to be good every year have to compete with much larger Bakersfield schools (five of them) in Division III?  What happened to working hard to get better so when you do actually win something like a league title it actually means something?

I'm jumping in a little late here, but when I was in HS locally here in the KC area we had to earn a playoff birth.  When did it change and why?  I played my guts out my Jr year only to lose out on the playoffs by one game in the SSL.  We didn't earn it, so we didn't play.  Gotta get back to the basics here.