CIF expands Division V football playoffs

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The CIF San Diego Section’s Division V football playoffs will now have 12 teams instead of eight.

A unanimous voice vote during the May 23 CIF Board of Managers meeting approved the playoff expansion. The change will take effect for the fall 2018 season.

A separate CIF action reduced the Open Division playoffs from eight teams to four while retaining the 12-team Division I playoff format. The CIF San Diego Section transitioned from enrollment-based divisions to competitive based divisions in 2013.

The CIF added Division V in 2005. 

The CIF San Diego Section’s Division V football playoffs will now have 12 teams instead of eight.

A unanimous voice vote during the May 23 CIF Board of Managers meeting approved the playoff expansion. The change will take effect for the fall 2018 season.

A separate CIF action reduced the Open Division playoffs from eight teams to four while retaining the 12-team Division I playoff format. The CIF San Diego Section transitioned from enrollment-based divisions to competitive based divisions in 2013.

The CIF added Division V in 2005. 

“We’ve continued to add teams,” said CIF commissioner Jerry Schniepp.

During 2018, Division V will consist of 15 schools.

“Sometimes it was hard to get 12 teams that actually wanted to play,” said St. Augustine High School athletic director Mike Stephenson, who represents the non-Diocese Catholic schools on the CIF Board of Managers. “I don’t think we have that problem any longer.”

The 2017 Division V playoffs excluded Holtville, who had a 6-4 record and lost by only seven points in the Vikings’ Manzanita League game against Division V champion Vincent Memorial. 

Mountain Empire was also left out of the 2017 playoffs despite a 5-5 season record. 

A 12-team Division V playoff last year also would have added Francis Parker and San Ysidro, both of whom posted 3-7 records, so a 12-team playoff would have had three teams with losing regular-season records (Southwest of San Diego finished 4-6 for the regular season). 

The Division IV playoffs had three teams with losing regular-season records while the Division III playoffs had five sub-.500 schools. The Division II, Division III, and Division IV playoffs have twelve teams apiece.

Division IV would have had four sub-.500 schools in a 12-team playoff for the 2016 season in which Division II and Division IV each had four teams with losing regular-season records. 

No Division II club was selected to the 2013 playoffs with a losing record, but that was the only playoff since the switch to the competitive-based format which had no sub-.500 teams. 

The 2013 Division V playoffs excluded Classical Academy despite the Caimans’ 8-2 record and also omitted 6-4 finishers Calvin Christian and Julian.

In addition to allowing four additional schools into the CIF playoffs, the 12-team format rewards the top Division V teams with a first-round bye while providing home games to the teams seeded fifth through eighth.

The first-round bye also extends the Division V playoff season from three weeks to four. 

“The Division V championship will be one week later, which also means they would not be able to play that championship at Southwestern College,” Schniepp said.

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