California Super Bowl in line for football powers?

A governing body for California’s community colleges will decide in

the spring on whether to implement a playoff system at the end of the

football season.

Frank Mazzota, head football coach at Cerritos College, along with

Jeff Jones (head coach at Santa Ana), submitted a proposal to a

postseason conference committee of the state’s Commission on

Athletics Feb. 1, in hopes of getting a playoff system in place for

next season for both Northern and Southern California teams.

There has been no playoff system the past two seasons, and both

Jones and Mazzota thought the time was ripe for a change.

“The whole idea is to have the north and the south meet in a

championship game,” Mazzota said. “At first, some coaches didn’t want

to give up the tradition of bowl games.”

But the proposal still includes the eight bowl games with the four

winners in the north, as well as the south, advancing to the

playoffs.

“Most like playing bowl games because there is a 50-50 chance of

winning,” Mazzota said. “In the playoffs, no one is happy but one

team, so we decided to keep the bowl structure. It’s a way to appease

everybody.”

With the playoff format, the season would start one week earlier

and teams would have to play during Thanksgiving weekend.

To ease the financial burden, Mazzota proposes to use the money

generated from bowl game ticket sales to stage subsequent playoff

games.

Jones said it takes about $6,000 to stage a bowl game, with

sponsors paying for much of the cost.

Jones devised a system where teams are seeded by their

conference’s combined winning percentage in the two “crossover,” or

nonconference games, at the beginning of the season.

This season, the Mission Conference (OCC’s affiliation) garnered

the highest winning percentage (.583) out of the three Southern

California leagues that also include Foothill (.529) and Western

States (.419).

Two seasons ago the Foothill Conference tallied a .722 winning

percentage while the Mission Conference registered a .625 mark.

“It’s always changing,” Jones said. “Now the crossover games mean

something.”

OCC Coach Mike Taylor supports the proposal.

“It’s a wise move to keep up the level of competition and givet

more exposure to the athletes,” Taylor sad. “Now a team that is 10-0

or 9-1 each has a chance to go to the championship game.”

The COA is expected to vote on the proposal sometime in March,

according to Jones. Schedules cannot be finalized until the vote is

taken.

Jones and Mazzota came up with the proposal about three or four

weeks ago.

“I think this is only fair to teams that are always doing well,”

Mazzota said.

*

* In other Coast football news:

Stephen Herring, an Orange Coast College offensive lineman the

past two seasons now attending Wagner College in New York City, was

one of three athletes selected as 2002-03 scholar athletes by the

Orange County Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College

Hall of Fame.

To be nominated for the honor, individuals must have received

all-conference recognition and have at least a 3.3 grade point

average. Herring finished his OCC career with a 3.68 GPA and took

second-team All-Orange Empire Conference honors last season.