Keyshawn Johnson sat down with St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy head football coach Devah Thomas, who led his group to its veryfirst CIF-Southern Section champion title after an 0-8 start to the season and a 1-9 last record.
How did St. Pius — a little, co-ed personal Catholic high school hailing from south Los Angeles with approximately 520 trainees — achieve such a accomplishment?
First of all, its strength of schedule was strong sufficient to make an at-large berth into the postseason, per Sports Illustrated.
“People simply can’t think it,” Thomas stated on the mostcurrent edition of “All Facts No Brakes.” “I wear’t make the guidelines, I simply follow them,” Thomas included of Calpreps, the computersystem system utilized to produce the playoff departments.
“I figured if we won one or 2 (games) that we can get in since our strength of schedule was one of the leading in California,” Thomas stated. “Every group that we played (in the routine season) made the playoffs otherthan for one out of 9 groups — all in a greater department than us otherthan for one group. … [There are] groups that went 7-3 that didn’t make the playoffs. I indicate, they played the Little Sisters of the Poor, and so it captured up to them.
“They desire competitive equity. …. The CIF is running with it … [and] we fit the requirements.”
Competitive equity is a morerecent playoff system that locations groups in their suitable department to make for competitive videogames. If there are still finds offered within the 16-team field, at-large groups are put in order of their Calpreps rankings from greatest to mostaffordable. St. Pius’ Calpreps ranking is96 Its strength of schedule ranking is 17.2, which is greater than all of its playoff challengers otherthan Cypress (18.1), which St. Pius beat in the veryfirst round, 21-14.
St. Pius beat Serrano in the CIF-SS Division 8 last on Friday night, 38-19. Junior quarterback Jassi Williams tossed 25 passes to 6 various receivers for 444 backyards and scored a integrated 5 goals (four passing, one hurrying).
Thomas went on to share why he felt St. Pius would go on a run if it got into the playoffs. “You simply saw the grit, the grind of these kids,” he stated. “They neverever provided up. They came every Monday after a loss and were still inspired.”
The Warriors’ football group consists of simply 30 overall gamers, with simply 2 seniorcitizens on the entire group.
Next up is the state local videogame on Saturday night. St. Pius will host San Diego-based St. Augustine, which went 0-10 in its routine season, in the Division 4-A match.
St. Pius formerly reached and lost the Division 14 last in 2019 and Division 7 last in 2021, which was Thomas’ initially season. Thomas has won playoff videogames in every season consideringthat then.
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