We've got the Sacramento-Grant—Long Beach-Poly Open Division state championship football game on TV here in the office, and it's a somewhat surprising 13-7 lead for Grant at the half. Maybe by the time I'm done with this all-encompassing football wrap-up, the game will be close to over. Maybe. I'll drag my feet. We'll see.

Here's a look at what happened in the four other state championships:

Division I: Corona-Centennial 21, Concord-De La Salle 16
Division II: San Diego-Cathedral Catholic 37, Stockton-St. Mary's 34
Division III: Ventura-St. Bonaventure 28, Santa Rosa-Cardinal Newman 6
Small Schools: San Juan Capistrano-St. Margaret's 59, Hamilton City-Hamilton Union 7

Not much to glean here from a Central Section perspective, but a few things stick out. First, if you want to know why no Valley teams have been selected for the bowl championships in their three years of existence, it's because Southern California has really, really good high school football. All four SoCal teams won those championships, and if Poly comes back against Grant, it'll be 5-for-5. If the Central Section were considered a Northern Cal section, there would be a few Central teams in there, though they'd have a tough time actually winning the bowl game.

So what happens when SoCal's best meets the Central Section's best? This year, we got a chance to find out. Corona-Centennial played at Clovis West, the eventual Division I Central champ, early in the year and thumped the Golden Eagles 42-7. That's  a pretty useful measuring stick, though it could be better (or maybe even worse) from year to year.

As for the smaller schools, I can't help but wonder where Bakersfield Christian would have fit in had it nine fewer students. That would have put BCHS' enrollment at 499 and made it eligible for the Small School championship. The Eagles would have gotten a long look, but after watching St. Margaret's demolish Hamilton, I don't know who would have won a game between those two — or whom the CIF would have picked for the bowl game. Either way, Hamilton wouldn't have stood a chance.

Now, to hone the focus back closer to home, let's take a quick look at each of the five playoff divisions and how they came out.

DIVISION I
Championship: Clovis West 24, Clovis East 7
It was pretty obvious from the get-go this year that there was no dominant team, and I think that's going to continue to be the case most years. Last year, Bakersfield made a run from the No. 3 seed to the championship, beating a No. 4 in the final; this year, Clovis West was No. 2, beating a No. 5. But those teams all were both able to prove that it's about who the hottest team at the end is.
This year, a lack of mistakes and an impregnable defense really helped Clovis West. When it came down to it, that defense could get a stop. They proved that in a tussle with Liberty in the quarterfinals and again in the semifinals against Fresno-Bullard, then never gave Clovis East much of a chance in the final.
As for the Kern County teams, it was a young year and the result, looking back on it, isn't all that surprising. But the three local quarterfinal losers — Bakersfield, Liberty and Stockdale — all bring back plenty of key parts to next year's teams, and Centennial will be much improved from this year's 3-7 version.

DIVISION II
Championship: Tulare Union 42, Visalia-El Diamante 33
I can't help but think no team around felt as good as Tulare did after winning its section title. The Redskins had been doubted all year long despite a gaudy unbeaten record and a bunch of blowouts. I was one of the doubters, to an extent, and I still think it was justified. El Diamante blew TU out in last year's final, then went and played a much tougher schedule while the Redskins did the same thing they did in 2007 — beat up a bunch of teams that didn't test them. Well, things turned around this year, and I could see it coming in the semifinals. D-II was a tougher bracket this year than last, and when Tulare beat Sanger with relative ease, that was the beginning of something. It continued the next week with a shootout win over El D, and now the folks in Tulare won't have to work so hard for their respect.
Meanwhile, no team faded faster than Fresno-Edison, which started out 5-0 with a couple of big out-of-section wins, a national ranking and state bowl talk. But things crashed down quickly. Edison got in academic hot water — with one of the school's math teachers saying a star player has his grade changed from an F to an A — and the Tigers drooped on the field, too, losing first to Clovis West, then to Bullard and then to El Diamante in a lackluster playoff performance that almost ended in Round 1.
As for the locals, North and Garces were better than expected and West probably was worse. Both teams had their moments — the Stars with an SWYL co-title and the Vikings with a scare of El Diamante in the playoffs — but neither really belonged in the upper echelon of D-II.

DIVISION III
Championship: Tehachapi 21, Hanford 14
When Tehachapi was busy starting the season an injury- and bad luck-riddled 1-3, then 3-4, you knew that was one school you couldn't count out yet. But did anyone really expect the Warriors to storm all the way to their second straight championship? By the end of the playoffs this was one of the eight or so best teams in the section, and that number maybe is even higher than that. Hanford was a great team that gave El Diamante a first-half run before star Cougar Williams was hurt, and the Bullpups couldn't dent Tehachapi (the Warriors had 7 more possible points wiped out when they ran out of time inside the 2-yard line at the end of the first half). Nobody, and I mean nobody in the entire section, wanted to play Tehachapi at year's end.
Elsewhere? Frankly, a lot of inconsistency and mediocrity. Well, Foothill got it together by playoff time for a third straight year, but I think it's safe to say this was the worst Trojans edition of those three. Dennis Manning's club never really got it together on offense. Neither did Highland, which showed a lot of early promise with its defense and then crashed against a back-loaded schedule. Golden Valley had its moments, including a big win against Bakersfield, but the Bulldogs had the bad fortune of running into Tehachapi in the quarterfinals. South made it to .500 for the first time this century, then wiped out against Delano in the first round of the playoffs.

DIVISION IV
Championship: Chowchilla 20, Kingsburg 0
With all the hubbub about the big divisions, Tehachapi's upset in D-III and Derek Carr's dealings in D-V, Chowchilla's run might get a little overlooked. It shouldn't. The other Redskins put the clamps on a Kingsburg offense that I thought was terrific two weeks earlier against Taft. The best team nobody knew about was waiting up in C-town.
All in all, this was a very balanced division. I loved Taft coach Steve Sprague's metaphor: His team, and you can throw Arvin in here too, was a "light heavyweight." They were fine against other light heavyweights, but when it came time to play push and shove with the true heavys — Chowchilla, Kingsburg, Visalia-Central Valley Christian and Exeter — it was too much to handle.

DIVISION V
Championship: Bakersfield Christian 49, Corcoran 27
Pretty much the only thing that was going to stop BCHS from winning this bracket was a natural disaster, and it nearly happened. The fog that probably helped Tehachapi against Hanford was a brutal detriment to Derek Carr, Jake Peterson and crew a few miles to the southwest last Friday night, and they came up with their worst statistical performance of the season. But the Eagles still had far too many weapons for any other small school out there.
I have not yet joined the popular opinion out there that Bakersfield Christian needs to move up divisions. Could this year's BCHS team have won Division IV, or even III? Absolutely. But year in and year out? I think that's asking a bit much, when you don't always get a senior transfer from Texas with an NFL pedigree.
That said, most years Corcoran would be going wild celebrating a section title right now. I feel bad for those guys, who were 12-0 coming into that game. But that's the breaks.

Now, here's a final look at my Central Section rankings — minus the usual witty commentary and insight that your intelligent and faithful blogger usually provides (see that? I make myself sound good even as I'm doing less work. Pretty neat, huh?). No really, I just don't know that anything about these teams can be said that hasn't already. And to make up for it, I'm doing a top 20 instead of the usual top 15:

1. Clovis West (10-3, Division I, previous ranking: 1)
2. Tulare Union (13-0, Division II, previous ranking: 4)
3. Fresno-Bullard (9-3, Division I, previous ranking: 2)
4. Visalia-El Diamante (11-2, Division II, previous ranking: 3)
5. Clovis East (9-4, Division I, previous ranking: 5)
6. Clovis-Buchanan (9-3, Division I, previous ranking: 6)
7. Liberty (7-4, Division I, previous ranking: 7)
8. Bakersfield Christian (12-1, Division V, previous ranking: 9)
9. Tehachapi (10-4, Division III, previous ranking: 15)
10. Fresno-Edison (9-3, Division II, previous ranking: 10)
11. Hanford (11-2, Division III, previous ranking: 8)
12. Stockdale (8-3, Division I, previous ranking: 11)
13. Bakersfield (7-4, Division I, previous ranking: 13)
14. Chowchilla (12-1, Division IV, previous ranking: NR)
15. Sanger (7-6, Division II, previous ranking: NR)
16. Corcoran (12-1, Division V, previous ranking: 12)
17. Oakhurst-Yosemite (8-4, Division III, previous ranking: NR)
18. Kingsburg (11-2, Division IV, previous ranking: 14)
19. North (8-3, Division II, previous ranking: NR)
20. Visalia-Central Valley Christian (9-3, Division IV, previous ranking: NR)
Others: West, Golden Valley, Fresno-San Joaquin Memorial, Delano, Exeter

And, finally, I'll evaluate my own predictions. I was a lousy 1-3 in the final four section championships, but that leaves me with a 183-70 mark, which is a healthy .723 percentage. Here's to a better next year. Stay tuned to the blog for all things high school sports — basketball, wrestling, soccer, baseball, softball, track, whatever it might be.

And what do you know? Long Beach-Poly rallied but gave up the lead. Sacramento-Grant wins 25-20 in the Open Division state championship bowl game. That makes it only 4-for-5 for the SoCal schools, and that makes it a wrap for 2008 high school football.