By Tim Peterson
Ready for some big changes? College sports may not be the only ones to have super conferences. There are proposals on the table for the Foothill League re-leaguing that could see local leagues like the Rio Hondo, Pacific, Almont, Mission Valley and Del Rio all merge into super conferences.
One proposal has the Rio Hondo and Pacific Leagues joining forces along with Marhsall and Gabrielino in the MVL to one form one big super conference. There would be three leagues, or tiers if you will, within the conference and they would play in three different divisions in the playoffs with the top tier being in the higher divisions. For football the tiers would be 4-6-6 but all other sports it would be 5-5-6.
The Pacific/Rio Hondo for football could look something like this:
A-Tier: Muir, Burbank, Monrovia, Pasadena,
B-Tier: South Pasadena, Burroughs, Crescenta Valley, La Canada, San Marino, Arcadia
C-Tier: Temple City, Hoover, Glendale, Blair, Marshall, Gabrielino
Another proposal has the Mission Valley and the Almont League merging along with El Rancho in the Del Rio which could look like this.
Tier-A: Arroyo, Schurr, El Rancho, South El Monte
Tier-B: El Monte, Bell Gardens, San Gabriel, Montebello
Tier-C: Keppel, Mt. View, Rosemead, Alhambra
Again, none of this is etched in stone. They are just proposals (suggestions) and I’m just spitballing on the tiers.
Another “suggestion” has the Suburban Valley Conference that would feature powerhouses like Downey, La Serna and Mayfair at the top. The middle tier would be teams like Santa Fe, Norwalk, La Mirada, Warren, Cal and Paramount while teams such as Firebaugh, Glenn, Cerritos and Pioneer would be in the bottom tier.
The idea is to bring competitive equity into play to make each league within a conference the most competitive it can be. In the Rio Hondo/Pacific Conference for example if three teams made the playoffs in the top tier, two qualified in the middle tier and two in the bottom that will be seven of the 16 teams in the playoffs. This could vary depending on the sport.
It’s not only good for parity but it also creates some nice matchups. Just imagine Monrovia-Muir and El Rancho-Arroyo on a regular basis. Schurr vs Arroyo works too. And La Serna facing Downey for a league title…every year…that’s huge. The energy and buzz that would bring before the playoffs even started would be off the charts.
Back to parity for a minute. Think about this. Suddenly teams like Temple City and El Rancho could be favorites to win the league title. That wouldn’t happen…at least not right now…in the current format.
So when will all of this happen? The voting will take place May 1 and if it’s voted in it will be for the 2026 season.
Let’s hear it for competitive equity!
That’s my principle.
Tim can be reached at tim.midvalleysports@gmail.com or on Twitter (X) @tspeterson40 Facebook-Tim Peterson
Loading ...
Interesting that the new Del Rio league proposal came out and the vote was a 4-1. Pretty shameful that a school like La Serna would be opposed to changing leagues and tried to get the district to push the AD’s from each school to vote against the new league proposal. It fills my heart to see all those AD’s told LS to kick rocks.
Sadly the demise of the Del Rio is thanks to the Whittier Union District bending over backwards to give La Serna everything and sacrificing their other schools.
With La Serna gone the Del Rio teams will all be in a much better position no matter what happens.
The last few contributors have done a good job of laying the AQs , the tiered system of league formation , and the advantages therein. This has been going on in the South Bay for the last couple years and seems to generally work well. They just kept the traditional league names in the area with Bay being tier 1 , Pioneer being tier 2 , and Ocean tier 3. It’s the wave of the future and follows general competitive equity model where if a school is getting clobbered in a better league they can regroup and repair program against easier competition.
There are certainly disadvantages, such as yanking being possible at end of rough year …. And just the promotion of mediocrity which has seemingly doomed much of SGV football to D13 and D14 success .
The Whittier superintendent is desperately trying to keep La Serna’s cake walk going.
@Armie Briones,
So you have a conference. Let’s use the potential combination of the Almont, Mission Valley, and El Rancho as an example. This is a 12 team conference.
The conference will be divided and leagues can be split into two 6 team leagues or even three 4 team leagues. Each sport will have different leagues within the conference based on the previous year’s cal preps or Massey ratings.
The names of the leagues will not actually be “Tier 1” or “Tier 2”, or “Tier 3” but probably something that makes sense for the conference
I’m not sure what the cal preps ratings are but let’s say in football, the top league of that conference consists of:
Schurr, El Rancho, Arroyo, Bell Gardens, South El Monte, El Monte
And league 2 would consist of:
Montebello, Alhambra, San Gabriel, Mt. View, Rosemead, and Keppel.
Let’s just hypothetically say that Montebello and Rosemead were the top 2 teams of league 2, they would bump up to league 1 the next year. And let’s say El Monte and South El Monte were the bottom teams of league 1, they would bump down to league 2 the next year.
Of course this would vary by sport.
This is if they follow the same model that the Suburban conference has used the past couple of years with the Gateway League being the higher tier and the Mid-Cities League being the lower tier. The Rio Hondo/Pacific would likely do the same.
So in football, the Gateway has perennial been Downey, Warren, Mayfair, La Mirada with 2 other teams such as Norwalk, Paramount, Dominguez, and Bellflower filling the last 2 spots.
The Mid-Cities League has been Lynwood, Firebaugh, and Gahr with either Norwalk, Paramount, Dominguez, or Bellflower filling the top 2 spots…..
In football, the Orange County area has it down to a science and even labels their top league as Alpha and their lowest league as Zeta with the rest of the Greek alphabet filling in the middle.
The Big VIII in the Corona area has what they call the Big VIII Upper and Big VIII lower. Looks to me like this region got to this a little later than everyone else did, but better late than never I guess.
James Escarcega had an excellent article describing how the Mt. SAC area did their releague process using data.
Sorry, I get kind of geeked out about this.
Santa Fe fell off the face of the earth for those few years because they lost a number of key players to La Serna, one of those players was the starting MLB on the state championship team in 2023.
Forgive my ignorance. In football, the A tier teams play each other once. How is the balance of each
A-tier teams football schedule filled out? I am sorry, I am not familiar with either Gateway or Mid-Cities Leagues. I have read about the conference concept and I know very little about it. Thanks to those who tried to explain the AQ’s. Future thanks to anyone who helps enlighten me.
I like the Mission Valley and the Almont League merging along with El Rancho there’s competitive balance
Which public schools are recruiting? That’s who they need to shove into a league together…
Monrovia coach really doesn’t like something about the Pacific league – he sounds scared.
AQ rules if I remember correctly:
4 team league gets 2 AQs.
5-8 team league gets 3 AQs.
9 team league gets 4 AQs.
Football is a little different:
4-5 team league gets 2 AQs.
6-8 team league gets 3 AQs.
9 team league gets 4 AQs.
Probably some of the thinking for conferencing this way; 4-6-6 for football and 5-5-6 for other sports. Rio/Pacific merger actually nets both leagues additional playoff spots. The cumulative effect vs. 2025 is movement in football from 5 (2 AQs in the RHL + 3 in the Pacific) to 8 playoff spots (2 AQs in tier A; 3 in tier B; 3 in tier C).
Seems like a no-brainer for those two leagues in particular. Just like dumping La Serna is a no-brainer for the rest of the Del Rio League.
The RHL should be with the Pacific League. Makes sense geographically too.
Project the votes! This is going to be like the senate!
How are schools going to vote??? What alliances will be made between leagues? What teams will vote against their league votes? Against schools in their league? Can’t envision a scenario where Marshall & Blair don’t vote with PUSD, Muir, and PHS against the RHL.
@Armie Briones,
Conferences split in 2, 3, or even 4 leagues depending on the size of the conference. And each sport has its own league. See the Mid Cities and Gateway Leagues from the last 2 years. AQ’s will be based on the league, not the conference.
The league you described was not proposed in the official proposals reported. Word is that the Whittier Superintendent mandated that all league schools needed to be together which doesn’t make any sense because they’ll be in different leagues anyway.
@Armie Briones,
Conferences split in 2, 3, or even 4 leagues depending on the size of the conference. And each sport has its own league. See the Mid Cities and Gateway Leagues from the last 2 years. AQ’s will be based on the league, not the conference.
The league you described was not proposed in the official proposals. Word is that the Whittier Superintendent mandated that all league schools needed to be together which doesn’t make any sense because they’ll be in different leagues anyway.
@The Key,
That is a great point. A school like Santa Fe should never have fell on the times they did at the end of the Pierson era and while the outsider was there. And while Bateman has improved the program, it’s largely due to 2 players. Tariq Bush and Devin Clark. But when playoffs came, they lost to Rim of the World (who?) and Grand Terrace, who lost to the team that lost to El Rancho in the semis. When losing those kinds of games in the playoffs, coaching matters.
What happens when the playoffs come along? How are the AQ’s determined? If a tier is a “league”, currently A 4 team gets 1AQ, I think, A 5 gets 2, A 6 gets 3, A 7+ gets 4. I understand competitive equity is the goal. I just don’t see how the CIFSS will determine the AQ distribution. Speaking of ER, I did see a proposal of a “league” of ER, MONT, BG, SCHURR, SF, PIONEER, WHITTIER, CAL. I am guessing that a conference would not fit this idea.
A high school team, no matter the sport, succeeds or fails mainly on a coach’s ability to get the kids out for the sport. The latest example is Santa Fe football, which was able to overtake ER as the Del Rio’s #2 team in just the first year of Ryan Bateman’s tenure. Bateman was not regarded as much of an Xs and Os type, and indeed was vastly inexperienced compared to the league’s other guys. But he boosted the numbers and that boosted the wins.
Nothing on the new sg coach
From T. Peterson: You missed it I guess. I posted it Friday. They hired Ray Torres as the new head coach.
@Jets89,
Have you paid attention to HS football at all? Some schools can hire dudes off the street and still be really good and some schools can hire Nick Saban and still be terrible.
New leagues every other year huh.. I fail to see the initial purpose of all of this. Is there any evidence of improvement over the years since all of this began? Or has this become a tea party of all seeing politicians making a desperate attempt to grasp a sense of direction towards the future of high school football. Even with evidence I agree with “In Other Words” you’re replicating the newest playoff system into leagues.. where is the end to this junk? “Algorithms TAKE OVER California Football!” Future headline right there Tim.. algorithmically perfected systems WOW, what a time to be alive, what a time to be a part of SGV football! Here’s a fix, hire good coaches to make bad programs competitive! SoCal Football WANTS You! Got what it takes?! Contact CIF!
I’d think adding Rio Hondo Prep, Pasadena Poly, and Marantha in the mix, too.
What’s really being proposed is having the ability to move superior teams and garbage teams in and out of the “tiers” from year to year, while still clinging to the warm and fuzzy thought of retaining the old “league” membership. It’s a half-step toward doing to the leagues what CIF did to the playoff divisions.