Sizing up CIF NorCal opponents for Sacramento teams. Who — and where — are they?

Now the great unknown starts for the five Sacramento-area high school football teams left standing.

The Folsom Bulldogs, the Woodcreek Timberwolves and Roseville Tigers of Placer County, the Sutter Huskies, and the Winters Warriors of Yolo County will compete in CIF Northern California Regional Bowl Games this weekend. At stake is a shot to play in the final weekend of the high school season in CIF State title games in Southern California on Dec. 12-13.

But who are the local squads playing? And where are those schools located, and what are they all about? Coaches are afforded the luxury of game film of opponents to pore over, to study and prepare for. But there is no guide for a deeper dive on the opponent, including game locations and team histories.

Coaching the game is one thing. Folsom is hosting a Bowl and the four other local programs are on the road, leaving the logistics of who, what, when and where to school athletic directors and administrators, and to families who might want to make a road trip an overnight experience.

“Definitely a lot of research done the last 24 hours on Minarets High School and O’Neals, California!” Winters coach Daniel Ward said Monday morning of his opponent and the opponent’s town.

Have you heard of the school or the town? A lot of us haven’t.

Added Ward, “You know us: Have ball, will travel. We are just excited to play.”

A closer peek at the opponents:

Folsom vs. Riordan: What is Riordan all about?

Folsom will host the Division 1-AA title game at Prairie City Stadium on Friday night at 7:30 against a school with name recognition in Northern California.

A state powerhouse in football since 2010 and seeking a sixth CIF state crown in that stretch, the Bulldogs are preparing for a loaded Archbishop Riordan of San Francisco squad. The 12-0 Crusaders are enjoying their finest season in the 76-year history of the school with 17 players who hold Division I college football scholarship offers. The football program started in 1951.

Riordan was named after the second archbishop of San Francisco in Patrick William Riordan. Riordan is an Archdiocesan Catholic co-ed campus in one of the scenic areas of the city. The school was originally called St. James High School. It was renamed in 1949 after the school moved to its current campus, and Archbishop was formally added to the school’s name in 1990.

Riordan has been a basketball powerhouse for decades with some solid-to-good football teams until this all-timer group now. The Crusaders won their first Central Coast Section Open Division championship and first West Catholic Athletic League crown in 25 years, thanks in part to fourth-year varsity starting quarterback Michael Mitchell, a Stanford commit, and 4-star offensive lineman Tommy Tofi, who has Sacramento ties, having started as a freshman in the trenches at Sheldon High in Sacramento.

Woodcreek vs. Sonora: Famed venue in a cool town

Armed with its first CIF Sac-Joaquin Section championship in the 31-year history of the school, Woodcreek (12-1) will face a familiar school in the Sonora Wildcats, also of this section.

Sonora (13-0) is a defending CIF state small-school champion and won the Division VI section crown. The CIF’s competitive-equity formula has these teams ranked next to each other, leading to this showdown some 2.5 hours from Placer County, never mind the difference in enrollment with Woodcreek having 1,900 students and Sonora 900.

Sonora is a public school in Tuolumne County, nestled in a town known for its California Gold Rush roots and tourist appeal. Its predecessor was known as Tuolumne County High School, which opened in 1902 and changed to Sonoran Union High in 1915 and Sonora High in 1982. The Wildcats have been a football power for decades with one of the state’s great football venues in Dunlavy Stadium. The 5,000-seat stadium was built in 1937 with recent renovations.

A 2001 story in USA Today listed Dunlavy Stadium as one of the top 10 places to watch a high school game in America. The coach, Kirk Clifton, is a graduate of Sonora, where he was a multisport athlete.

Sutter vs. Ferndale: Scenic Humboldt County

Sutter is coming off of its first Sac-Joaquin Section championship after winning 13 in the CIF Northern Section, and they will make a five-hour trip to Humboldt County in the northern part of the state to take on the 13-0 Ferndale Wildcats in the Division 4-AA title game on Friday night.

Ferndale is a cozy town of fewer than 2,000 people, known for Victorian storefronts and homes and the fog that rolls in during the summer. The town has been included in films and TV programs, including the 2001 film “The Majestic” with Jim Carrey. The current high school campus opened in 1952, and the alumni include chef Guy Fieri.

The football team on the 140-person campus? Dominant. Ferndale did not allow a single point until Halloween Night, on Oct. 31, after storming to an 8-0 start with shutouts of 57-0, 62-0, 49-0, 58-0, 73-0, 79-0, 72-0 and 67-0. The Wildcats have scored 762 points and allowed 53 in posting their first 13-0 start in program history.

Winters vs. Minarets: Where, exactly?

The Warriors of Yolo County, a small-school powerhouse since the 1970s, will make the 3.5 hour trek to the Central Valley on Saturday night to play the Minarets Mustangs in O’Neals in Madera County in the Division 6-A final in a battle of 12-1 teams.

Known for its scenic nearby lakes and rural farming and ranching regions, O’Neals has fewer than 1,000 people with a high school enrollment of just under 500, drawing students from Yosemite to the Fresno regions. The high school was founded in 2008.

The football team went 1-10 in 2021, 9-4 in 2024 and is 12-1 this season behind star quarterback Torin Wolf.

Ward, the Winters coach, met Minarets coaches and administrators on Monday at the CIF headquarters in Sacramento as all NorCal teams were given a briefing on the games. A lot of coaches swapped information about their teams and towns. Minarets High folks are about as familiar with Winters as that school’s people are of them.

“It’s really kind of cool and fun,” Ward said. “No one in the city of Winters has heard of Minarets High School or O’Neals, California, and they haven’t heard of us., either, and that’s what adds to it all. I told someone today, ‘Do you know of UC Davis?’ Yeah. ‘Well, we’re 10 miles west of that.’”

A Minarets administrator shared a similar fun story with Ward. When informed on Sunday afternoon when the CIF posted NorCal brackets that Minarets would play Winters, someone wondered if the CIF meant the winter season. No. Football season, which hits the high point this weekend in familiar locations and some not so familiar.

This story was originally published December 1, 2025 at 2:12 PM.