The Glorious Gridiron

Alas, it’s here. Our labor of love, and admittedly my favorite issue to work on every year.

This is the eighth edition of our Football Preview, and I feel like it gets better each time we do it.

This year we added our newest wrinkle, adding a Southern California edition that will be available at SportStarsMag.com the same day that the NorCal issue releases in print and online. We leaned heavily on the help of Cal-Hi Sports editor and co-founder Mark Tennis. If you’re gonna lean on somebody, it may as well be one of the most respected names in California high school reporting over the last three decades.

This will be the first full academic year of our effort to cover SoCal schools. Our first SoCal edition didn’t come until late November of 2016. Tennis will be helping us spearhead our coverage down there, and we’re hoping we can continue to grow that issue.

As for the SoCal Football Preview, look for a feature on Mission Hills-San Marcos receiver Chris Olave — set to be a go-to target for 4-star QB Jack Tuttle after sitting out a year due to a transfer rule that no longer exists — as well as stories on Mission Viejo standout Olaijah Griffin, and the impact of the CIF L.A. City Section creating an Open Division. It will also feature a Preseason All-SoCal team and Preseason SoCal Top 20 team rankings.

As for the NorCal issue, we’ve got it chock full of gridiron goodness. The North Coast Section and Sac-Joaquin Section each have three stories in here, the Central Coast Section has two, and one each for the Oakland and San Francisco sections. There’s the Preseason All-NorCal team and our NorCal Top 20 rankings.

Throughout the issue you’ll also see our players to watch breakouts for small, medium and large schools for certain sections. And finally, keep an eye out for our Flash 5 — the five NorCal players we believe will help fill the highlight-reel void left by last year’s Football Preview cover kid, Antioch’s Najee Harris.

What we don’t have in here are section and state championship predictions. With the way many sections are using Open Divisions and competitive equity-based playoff bracketing now, we thought there was just a little too much guesswork involved.

But it feels as though a preview issue like this should have SOME sort of out-on-a-limb offering. So I’ll throw out a few of my own personal blind stabs to lead you into the issue. Here goes nothing.

A few predicted champs from some top NorCal leagues:

BAY VALLEY (NCS): Pittsburg

DELTA (SJS): Jesuit-Carmichael

EAST BAY (NCS): San Ramon Valley-Danville

SIERRA FOOTHILL (SJS): Folsom

WEST CATHOLIC (CCS): St. Francis-Mountain View

Also, here’s a couple more random predictions.

>> The North Coast Section will finally land a second large school in a CIF State Bowl final — While Pittsburg, San Ramon Valley, Freedom-Oakley, Clayton Valley Charter or any other school is unlikely to take down De La Salle in the NCS Open Division, whoever gets a shot at the regional bowl will break through to join the Spartans at Sac State.

>> At season’s end, our NorCal Player of the Year will be a junior — Between De La Salle’s Isaiah Foskey and Henry To’oto’o, Pittsburg’s Jacob Bandes, Bishop O’Dowd’s Austin Jones (see cover) and St. Francis’ Josh Pakola, the amount of Class of 2019 talent is impressive this season.

Jump into the Preview and feel free to holler back with your own predictions on any of our social media channels. And lastly, Hooray Football.

[sam_pro id=1_2 codes=”true”]  [bsa_pro_ad_space id=21]