Why forfeits won’t affect El Cerrito’s NCS football playoff seeding
EL CERRITO – The embattled El Cerrito football team, which has a 1-6 record after forfeiting five games for using ineligible players, can still qualify for the playoffs if it wins its league championship.
But here’s the catch:
The Gauchos won’t be put in a weaker bracket despite a sub-.500 regular-season record, North Coast Section commissioner Pat Cruickshank said in an interview with the Bay Area News Group on Tuesday.
They would likely be in a division with heavyweights such as De La Salle and Pittsburg.
The section’s new playoff format uses computer rankings to divide teams by strength, and El Cerrito’s rating remains high.
The Gauchos are the fifth-best team in the NCS, according to the identical MaxPreps/CalPreps rankings, which doesn’t change results if a game was later forfeited.
In the computer’s eyes, El Cerrito is 6-1, not 1-6.
“Whoever is the top eight teams in the MaxPreps rankings at the end of the regular season will be our teams in the Open bracket,” Cruickshank said.
El Cerrito self-reported the eligibility violations, the commissioner noted.
An unspecified number of players remain sidelined, and coach Jacob Rincon has not been at a game since Sept. 13. He is on administrative leave, according to sources.
On Monday, El Cerrito students held a walkout to protest the decision to vacate the football victories, and star player Savion Bandy supported the team’s coach in a post on the social-media platform X.
“If you know then you know, Coach Jake is way more than a coach,” he wrote. “A big brother, a mentor, and a friend. He made me a better person the first day I stepped on the El Cerrito Football Field. Please bring my coach back.”
Rincon and the West Contra Costa County Unified School District have not responded to repeated requests for comment.
There has been speculation that El Cerrito would not have enough players to play a game Friday. But interim coach Tim Johnson adamantly refuted those claims.
“I don’t know where the rumor of us not having enough players came from, because we’ve got 69 players between JV and varsity,” Johnson told this news organization on Tuesday. “We’ve got plenty of players.”
He added that team morale is high and that the Gauchos still want to qualify for the playoffs.
“I addressed the team yesterday, and told everybody that we have to stick together,” Johnson said. “Our job is the finish off the season, and once we finish off this league, qualify for playoffs and make a deep run.”
The WCCUSD will hold its next school board meeting on Wednesday. It is unclear if there will be public discussion about the El Cerrito football situation.