SGV/Whittier Prep Sports Zone: Escarcega on Preps: From Rankings to Reality: How Data Reshaped High School Football Leagues
A breakdown on how the new leagues were formulated.
Mt. SAC releaguing meeting on Friday at Rowland HS. (Escarcega)
If you are a high school football fan in the San Gabriel Valley, you have probably heard that the athletic directors within the Mt. SAC area voted on new football leagues only in 2026 and 2027.
Here is what the leagues will look like in two years.
The difference from the re-leaguing process two years ago was that the athletic directors relied more than ever on data from HSratings.com and the Massey Ratings. Since the leagues are now formulated, we can share how the ratings helped the Palomares League’s proposal become a reality.
We will focus on one number: the Rank average. The rank average is a school’s average rank based on four factors.
1) HSratings.com unweighted 2-Year Avg.
2) Massey Ratings unweighted 2-Year Avg.
3) HSratings.com weighted 2-Year Avg (75% 2024, 25%-2023)
4) Massey Ratings weighted 2-Year Avg 75% 2024, 25%-2023)
Average out the rank numbers, and you get your numbers. Then, you can start ranking the teams from 1 to 40.
Let’s take a look at what we will call Tier 1.
In this situation, we have 12 teams for ten spots in the new leagues. From the start, the correct thing to do was to make the Baseline League a five-team league. We talked about it in our Thursday column.
Taking the top-5 team out of the conversation reduces the conversation to eight teams for six spots. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the top five teams should be in the “Sierra” League (League 2). We know that Northview lobbied heavily to stay in “Valle Vista,” but the data showed it was time for the Vikings to play in the Sierra.
The problem becomes finding the sixth team. If Colony had written a letter asking for “relief,” they might have gotten it. But since Colony didn’t submit a letter, they were slotted in the Sierra. There are your six teams.
Keep San Dimas and Los Osos in your hip pocket as we move on to another group of teams we’ll call Tier 2.
We have nine teams here. It's interesting to note that four of the original “Hacienda League” teams are in this Tier and didn’t ask for relief. But the fifth team from the league is Walnut, and (as you will see), they asked for relief and got it.
As you start constructing the Hacienda, you have to find two teams. The first one was easy in West Covina. They checked off many boxes for why they should be in the Hacienda.
Let’s return to Valle Vista, which already has San Dimas and Los Osos. Since we’ve eliminated most of the teams as they were slotted into the Hacienda, it was only right to fill in the Valle Vista with Chino, Diamond Ranch, Alta Loma, and Claremont. There is your six-team “League 3,” aka Valle Vista.
However, we’re not done with the Hacienda. We need another team. It's time to move on to the Tier 3 teams, and this is where it gets interesting.
Don Lugo and Chaffey were correctly slotted as the top two teams in the Gano. Now comes the most interesting part of the conversation. The following two teams were Baldwin Park and Walnut. Since Walnut asked for relief, and the data showed that their request was warranted, Baldwin Park became the sixth team for the Hacienda, and that league is now taken care of.
By removing Baldwin Park from the conversation, there are now seven teams for six spots in the Gano. At this point, the top six teams remaining should have been slotted for the Gano, and we should move on.
However, that was not the case. The proposal moved Nogales up to the Gano League (League 5) and Wilson to be the Montview (League 6). Why was this the case? I think coaches and administrators from the area leagues have been rubbed the wrong way by the actions and words from those at Nogales.
For those who were tired of Nogales’ actions for the past year, this was, in essence, their answer to them. “F*&^ Around and Find Out.”
And with that, Nogales is in the Gano, and Wilson is in the Montview. Again, this is my thinking.
To complete the process, here are the Tier 4 teams and the leagues they will enter.
That’s how it went. I hear you want to know what happened throughout the morning and at lunchtime.
You’ll have to wait until Sunday.