Video: Fairfax (Laveen, AZ) football highlights vs. Westwood High School
See clips from Fairfax's contest last season.There are two groups of football teams that possibly best represent the hope that was expected to be borne out of the reclassification of the divisions in 2015.
The 10 teams that make up the Phoenix Union School District have been misplaced and overmatched for years based on school population alone. The Mesa school district, at one time, was the envy of the East Valley before the Chandler schools took over the reigns for about a decade.
The placement process, which considered enrollment, a program's past success and the number of students eligible for the federally mandated free and reduced lunch programs, had plenty of backlash, but the end result has a lot of football programs feeling much better about the prospects of a competitive 2015 season.
Before this year the PUSD teams had been beat up by fellow Division I programs for so long that roster sizes, which have never been busting at the seams, had dwindled to the near bare minimum. The 10 schools –
Alhambra (Phoenix),
Fairfax (Laveen),
Camelback (Phoenix),
Carl Hayden Community (Phoenix),
Central (Phoenix),
Cesar Chavez (Laveen),
Maryvale (Phoenix),
North (Phoenix),
South Mountain (Phoenix) and
Browne (Phoenix) – are now in Division III.
Alhambra is one of many Phoenix-area schools to see its classification changed.
Photo by Mark Jones
It will be a much better fit for the programs that tend to have a fluid roster like many similar urban schools and will add a few wins each year instead of big losses and it will be that much easier to come to practice and put in the time.
"It's obviously not pleasant at all to go out there and lose like that," South Mountain coach Daryl Phillips told AzCentral.com. "It's tough to keep kids motivated."
The other group is the core of Mesa schools –
Dobson (Mesa),
Skyline (Mesa),
Mesa and
Westwood (Mesa) – that dropped down to Division II from Division I in recent years.
Westwood made the move a few years back and found success after struggling to compete at the highest level.
Now Dobson, Mesa and Skyline join the Warriors in the second division while
Mountain View (Mesa) and
Red Mountain (Mesa) stayed among the 17 Division I programs.
Mesa and Skyline opened the year with wins. The Jackrabbits knocked off Red Mountain to open the year.
The instant reaction is it was kind of ironic that Mesa went down to Division II and then beat a Division I squad in the first game of the year. A closer look with some insight from Jackrabbits coach Scott Hare gives more of an indication as to why Mesa should be in Division II.
"We played 16 guys in the game, not counting special teams," Hare said. "Can we beat a Division I team? Of course, but can we do that week-in, week-out? No, we can't do that. Here it is Wednesday and we still have guys trying to recover.
"We have some good players in our core group and they are all playing both ways, but you are not going to find many true D-I teams with that many players on both sides of the ball."
In this day and age of specialization, a program like Mesa, which plays Division I
Highland (Gilbert) this week, has trouble filling out its roster, leading to the inability to take the physical toll that a Division I schedule brings.
"We have so many single-sport athletes on this campus," Hare said. "It thins out our football program and playing a D-I schedule every week a real struggle."
But now that they have seemingly found the right fit against like opponents, there is a different feel for programs like Mesa, South Mountain and so many others.
"There's never going to be a team going in expecting to finish 0-10," Phillips said. "I would be willing to bet there's a not a coach in our division that thinks they can't go at least 2-8 or 3-7. That may not seem like much but it makes a huge difference. It's hard to build on just moral victories.
"At the end of the day, there has to be some sort of measuring stick that we can hang our hat on."
Jason P. Skoda, a former Arizona Republic sports writer and current Prep Sports Director for 1013 Communications, is a 20-year sports writing veteran. Contact him at jskoda1024@aol.com.
