Four organizations have put out some form of preseason rankings that include CCS schools. The Bay Area News Group has a top 25 ranking the includes only CCS, NCS schools, Oakland and SF . Norcalpreps has a top 20 ranking that also includes SJS and Northern section schools. CalHi does state wide rankings, and Calpreps ranks teams on a statewide and national basis.
Remember that the Calprep rankings will be a large component of how teams are selected for the CCS play-offs and how they are seeded for the play-offs. The top 8 CCS teams at the end of the year will square of in the CCS Division I Play-offs. Here are the different pre-season polls.
Cal Preps
School CCS Norcal State
Valley Christian 1 5 30
Menlo-Atherton 2 7 42
Wilcox 3 16 70
St. Francis 4 24 88
Mitty 5 29 97
Aptos 6 32 108
Serra 7 38 128
Salinas 8 42 139
Palo Alto 9 44 143
Burlingame 10 45 147
CalHi
School CCS Norcal State
Valley Christian 1 4 17
Menlo-Atherton 2 6 27
Serra 3 8 30
Wilcox 4 9 36
St. Francis 5 15 50
Mitty 6 16-25 51-70*
* only CCS team of 20 teams mentioned on bubble for CalHi ranking
Norcalpreps
School CCS Norcal
Valley Christian 1 4
Serra 2 5
Menlo-Atherton 3 6
St. Francis 4 9
Wilcox 5 13
Bay Area News Group/San Jose Mercury
School CCS CCS/NCS/Oakland/SF
Valley Christian 1 3
Serra 2 4
Menlo-Atherton 3 5
Wilcox 4 8
St. Francis 5 10
Mitty 6 17
Salinas 7 19
Sacred Heart Prep 8 21
Aptos 9 22
Palo Alto 10 23
Burlingame 11 24
In terms of the 5 A leagues, the WCAL and Gabilan are covered well in other threads that have already been posted.
The other 3 A leagues are the Deanza, PAL-Bay and Mt. Hamilton.
Deanza - Not a lot on the board posted about Wilcox who went 14-1 last year beating Valley Christian and winning a norcal and state bowl game. Their only loss was a close section final loss to Menlo-Atherton. Last year's team was very balanced between the junior and senior classes. Wilcox lost a lot but also returns a lot (leading rusher, half of their starting lines and half of the leading tacklers from a very good defense). Probably not quite as strong as last year, but are favored to win their league again. All the pre-season polls have Palo Alto second and on the fence between being in Division I and II in the play-offs. No love for Los Gatos in the polls, but it worth noting that they have the number 1 or 2 top ranked CCS college prospect (some list USC commit Los Gatos' OL Dewerk #1 and some have VC's Moon as #1) in the class of 2020 and the consensus # 2 class of 2021 CCS college prospect (DE Schweitzer) with a solid coaching staff and team and they could challenge Palo Alto for the second spot. Milpitas still seems to be below their top historical levels.
PAL-Bay - Menlo-Atherton is the prohibitive favorite but Burlingame and Sacred Heart Prep figure to compete for second place and might grab a lower spot int he Division I Play-off. Menlo-Atherton has two key players out for the first part of the season. Raymond Price who was SHP's starting QB as a sophomore and led them to a CCS final will be ineligible for the first four games and Andre Bishop who transferred from St. Francis and was one the WCAL's leading running backs last year is injured and will miss at least the first half of the season. With these two players potentially joining the team for the second half of the year, Menlo-Atherton may look different come play-off time than they did in the preseason.
Mt. Hamilton - Looks to be a three team race between Live Oak, Oak Grove and Leland. This league really had no impressive non-conference wins last year and haven't scheduled too many tough pre-season games that will boost their standing in the cal preps rankings which weights strength of schedule fairly heavily. Live Oak plays Burlingame, Christopher and Gilroy; Oak Grove plays St. Francis, Los Gatos and Oakland Tech while Leland plays Wilcox, Los Gatos and Aragon.
For one of these teams to have a chance at the top play-off division they will likely need to finish their pre-season at least 2-1 if not 3-0.
Division I based on pre-season consensus is predicted to be the top 4 WCAL schools (VC, SF, Serra, Mitty), Menlo-Atheron, and Wilcox. The final two spots are likely to go to the Gabilan champion (Salinas, Aptos and maybe Palma) and then the runner-up from the Pal-Bay (SHP/Burlingame) runner-up in the Gabilan or runner-up in the Deanza (Palo Alto/Los Gatos)
Remember that the Calprep rankings will be a large component of how teams are selected for the CCS play-offs and how they are seeded for the play-offs. The top 8 CCS teams at the end of the year will square of in the CCS Division I Play-offs. Here are the different pre-season polls.
Cal Preps
School CCS Norcal State
Valley Christian 1 5 30
Menlo-Atherton 2 7 42
Wilcox 3 16 70
St. Francis 4 24 88
Mitty 5 29 97
Aptos 6 32 108
Serra 7 38 128
Salinas 8 42 139
Palo Alto 9 44 143
Burlingame 10 45 147
CalHi
School CCS Norcal State
Valley Christian 1 4 17
Menlo-Atherton 2 6 27
Serra 3 8 30
Wilcox 4 9 36
St. Francis 5 15 50
Mitty 6 16-25 51-70*
* only CCS team of 20 teams mentioned on bubble for CalHi ranking
Norcalpreps
School CCS Norcal
Valley Christian 1 4
Serra 2 5
Menlo-Atherton 3 6
St. Francis 4 9
Wilcox 5 13
Bay Area News Group/San Jose Mercury
School CCS CCS/NCS/Oakland/SF
Valley Christian 1 3
Serra 2 4
Menlo-Atherton 3 5
Wilcox 4 8
St. Francis 5 10
Mitty 6 17
Salinas 7 19
Sacred Heart Prep 8 21
Aptos 9 22
Palo Alto 10 23
Burlingame 11 24
In terms of the 5 A leagues, the WCAL and Gabilan are covered well in other threads that have already been posted.
The other 3 A leagues are the Deanza, PAL-Bay and Mt. Hamilton.
Deanza - Not a lot on the board posted about Wilcox who went 14-1 last year beating Valley Christian and winning a norcal and state bowl game. Their only loss was a close section final loss to Menlo-Atherton. Last year's team was very balanced between the junior and senior classes. Wilcox lost a lot but also returns a lot (leading rusher, half of their starting lines and half of the leading tacklers from a very good defense). Probably not quite as strong as last year, but are favored to win their league again. All the pre-season polls have Palo Alto second and on the fence between being in Division I and II in the play-offs. No love for Los Gatos in the polls, but it worth noting that they have the number 1 or 2 top ranked CCS college prospect (some list USC commit Los Gatos' OL Dewerk #1 and some have VC's Moon as #1) in the class of 2020 and the consensus # 2 class of 2021 CCS college prospect (DE Schweitzer) with a solid coaching staff and team and they could challenge Palo Alto for the second spot. Milpitas still seems to be below their top historical levels.
PAL-Bay - Menlo-Atherton is the prohibitive favorite but Burlingame and Sacred Heart Prep figure to compete for second place and might grab a lower spot int he Division I Play-off. Menlo-Atherton has two key players out for the first part of the season. Raymond Price who was SHP's starting QB as a sophomore and led them to a CCS final will be ineligible for the first four games and Andre Bishop who transferred from St. Francis and was one the WCAL's leading running backs last year is injured and will miss at least the first half of the season. With these two players potentially joining the team for the second half of the year, Menlo-Atherton may look different come play-off time than they did in the preseason.
Mt. Hamilton - Looks to be a three team race between Live Oak, Oak Grove and Leland. This league really had no impressive non-conference wins last year and haven't scheduled too many tough pre-season games that will boost their standing in the cal preps rankings which weights strength of schedule fairly heavily. Live Oak plays Burlingame, Christopher and Gilroy; Oak Grove plays St. Francis, Los Gatos and Oakland Tech while Leland plays Wilcox, Los Gatos and Aragon.
For one of these teams to have a chance at the top play-off division they will likely need to finish their pre-season at least 2-1 if not 3-0.
Division I based on pre-season consensus is predicted to be the top 4 WCAL schools (VC, SF, Serra, Mitty), Menlo-Atheron, and Wilcox. The final two spots are likely to go to the Gabilan champion (Salinas, Aptos and maybe Palma) and then the runner-up from the Pal-Bay (SHP/Burlingame) runner-up in the Gabilan or runner-up in the Deanza (Palo Alto/Los Gatos)
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