In case you haven’t heard yet, Nederland wasn’t the only school that had to forfeit wins. Nederland’s forfeit drops them a mere one game back, from 2-4 to 1-4. Calallen’s forfeits, announced today, would’ve been much more devastating had they come at a different time.
Calallen is 12th is our rankings and in the top 10 in most other publication’s opinions. They forfeited two wins when they played an ineligible player. Instead of being 4-1 with a single loss to an underrated San Antonio Johnson team, they’ll be 2-3. The player that was ruled ineligible was used in the most minuscule fashion possible: as a placeholder during extra points and field goals. The vote from the district board was close, Calallen was forced to forfeit by a 6-4 vote.
They’ll give up two blowout wins, a 28-7 victory over King and a 48-7 victory over Carroll. In a large district like 30-5A, two losses would normally spell doom for playoff hopes, and certainly will affect playoff seeding if not playoff chances as a whole. Carroll and King are both in Calallen’s district and not in their district, in a very unique way.
However, Calallen’s district is not normal. District 30-5A is split in half, and even though Calallen has lost two games to foes that are technically in their district, they don’t count towards playoff standings at all. They still have four more district games to play, and if they win all of those, they’ll enter a psuedo-playoff that’s a truly unique scenario.
Corpus Christi is divided into “zones”, the North zone and the South zone. The teams are in the same district, and still play each other, but if a team from the North plays a team from the South, their victories don’t count towards a district title. Calallen is in the North, and Carroll and King are in the South.
The two top teams from each zone will play each other for playoff seeding. The top two get in automatically. The second and third places from their respective zones will play as well, only the second seeds will play the third seeds. It’ll look a little like this.
1st seed (North) vs. 1st seed (South)
2nd seed (North) vs. 3rd seed (South)
2nd seed (South) vs. 3rd seed (North)
The difference between the matchup between the 1st seeds and the 2nd and 3rd seeds is that the 2nd and 3rd seeds are playing to get into the playoffs. Each district can only send four teams, and this process helps ensure that only the best teams from the district get to go.
So how does this ineligibility affect Calallen? It’ll have zero affect on the postseason chances for the Wildcats at all. The teams they’ve forfeited games to weren’t in their zone, so they don’t count towards playoff chances at all. They’re essentially non-district losses even though they technically came to district foes.
It’s awful to have to give up two games, especially to something as minuscule as a placeholder not being eligible, but Calallen is likely going to surf on into the playoffs anyways.
