Sacramento area high school football playoff forecast

Updated Friday morning to reflect Gustine’s forfeit victory over Livermore Valley Charter Prep, a result that is not in the Calpreps database. The win appears in the section’s tally, so Gustine will finish the season with at least six wins. That dramatically changed the projection: Oak Ridge was bounced out of the playoffs, and Grant moved to Division I.

With the 2014 high school football playoff brackets just a day away, The Sacramento Bee forecasts that Folsom, Rocklin and Inderkum will have the top seeds in Divisons I, II and III. Grant will join Folsom in the Division I bracket.

The findings are based on predicted results for this week’s games from Calpreps.com, combined with results from the season to date.

The Sac-Joaquin Section’s football playoff system has undergone considerable tweaks, including:

▪ Expansion to seven divisions, with 16-team brackets in the top three divisions. Division IV drops to an eight-team bracket.

▪ Elimination of the “wall” that prevented teams from floating between Divisons IV and V-VI based on enrollment.

▪ Creation of a bracket-seeding process that gives section officials discretion over the order of seeding criteria.

Our projection uses Calpreps ratings, one of the criteria, as a simple way of seeding the teams.

In our projection, no five-win teams earn an at-large berth. Cordova is the only team held out of the playoffs for failing to win twice in league.

Small deviations from the predictions can have big effects. Del Oro does not appear in the current projection, because the Golden Eagles are projected to lose against Granite Bay by eight points. But if Del Oro wins, it earn the Sierra Foothill League’s third playoff spot. Three-way ties determined a league qualifier in three league races – and since the tiebreakers are based on scores in Week 10, those outcomes are likely to change.

Calpreps projected 86 percent of California’s games accurately last week, but it only takes one unexpected result to have a dramatic affect on the section's playoff system.

The section plans to release the brackets late Saturday afternoon, after results from the day’s games are complete.

PW-Projected wins PL-Projected losses LF-League finish

AL-At-large berth

On the divisional edge: Many teams can float between division because of enrollment and the mix of qualifying teams. The smallest enrollment school in D-I is Grant. In D-II, the largest school is Downey and the smallest school that could move down is Patterson. Rio Linda is the largest school in D-III; Rosemont is the smallest that could move down. In D-IV, Center is the largest and Escalon is the smallest that could move down. In D-V, Bear River is the largest; Mariposa County the smallest that can move down. In D-VI, Gustine is the largest.

Outside looking in: All teams with six wins are projected to make the playoffs – Hughson is the the last team in since it has the lowest number of opponents’ wins. Just outside the playoff bubble are a number of teams projected to finish 5-5. The strongest, in terms of opponents’ wins: Oak Ridge, Laguna Creek and Lodi.

How our projection is done: This forecast applies the section’s playoff rules based on games played to date plus Calprep’s predictions for Week 10 games. The section’s playoff plan attached to this story, along with some sample brackets. No projection is shown for Division VII because its qualification process simply takes the top three finishers from two leagues.

The section has broad authority to adjust the seeds to compose the final brackets. For example, seeding is generally adjusted to prevent teams from the same league from meeting in the first round. Travel distance has been another potential reason for a seeding adjustment. These determinations are up to the seeding committee’s discretion.

Questions? Send me an email at nlevine@sacbee.com or leave a comment.

This story was originally published November 6, 2014 at 2:01 PM with the headline "Sacramento area high school football playoff forecast."