High School Football '90
Eagles to work free-lance
This year, Santa Margarita's football team won't be able to reach the standard all schools shoot for – winning a league title.
The Eagles are playing a freelance schedule for football after the school was placed in the Angelus League last spring. The school felt - and the CIF council agreed – a school fielding its first senior class wasn't ready for the rigors of playing in a Division I league for football.
But what can the players shoot for without a league title?
"A spot in the playoffs," says Santa Margarita coach Jim Hartigan.
And that might not be as difficult as it sounds.
CIF Southern Section bylaws say a freelance school can petition for entry into the playoffs if 80 percent of its games are against varsity squads and it wins 50 percent of those games.
The Eagles were 8-4 last year.
"We won't be confident of making the playoffs until we win 70 percent of our games," Hartigan said.
The bigger question might be which division CIF's at-large selection committee would put the Eagles in at the end of the regular season.
Santa Margarita will play a tougher schedule this year, including games against Division II schools Gahr, Pasadena and Warren, but Hartigan believes his squad still is basically a Division IX team.
"Really our team is still the size of Division IX. We have some good kids, but depth is a big problem. We only have 39 kids out for the varsity."
If the Eagles make the playoffs and eventually win a CIF title, they wouldn't be the first county school to achieve the feat. Servite tied Santa Ynez for the Small Schools title in 1960, when the school had only juniors and sophomores. Edison came close when the school opened in 1969 and had a small senior class graduate in the spring of 1970. The football team defeated Lompoc, 24-14, to win the CIF 2-A title in the fall of 1970.
The Register Staff
Tuesday, September 4, 1990
The Orange County Register - D12
