COVID-19: Friday Night Lights to Go Dark For California Prep Football This Fall

The changes will have impact that will affect colleges and athletes being recruited

The California Interscholastic Federation on Monday postponed all fall high school sports, moving the start of their seasons to December or January and merging winter sports seasons into the spring, all the result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The changes will impact thousands of male and female high school athletes throughout the state, but will also affect college programs.

For example, high school football players who opt to graduate mid-year in order to enroll in college in time to participate in spring practice will have to do so without having even played their senior seasons, which is a significant sacrifice for many of those young men.

Their football seasons will just be getting started at the point they are transitioning from high school to college.

An easier call, apparently, for Victory Vaka, a four-star defensive line prospect from Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks, who announced on Twitter he will skip his senior season. Vaka already has committed to Texas A&M and said he will enroll mid-year.

For prep football players hoping to expand their recruiting base through their performance on the field as seniors, college scouts won’t get the chance to begin evaluating them on game nights until likely January.

That’s troublesome given that the current early letter-of-intent signing period for football is Dec. 18-20. Traditionally, those dates are after the conclusion of the high school season. Now they are before the prep football schedule even begins.

It won’t have any effect on the so-called four- and five-star prospects, many of whom already have given verbal commitments to college lining up for their services.

But for high school players below the elite level — perhaps late-bloomers who are counting on big senior seasons — they have a choice to make. Accept the bird-in-hand, perhaps an early scholarship offer from a mid-size school, or roll the dice on showing enough improvement on the field that a Power 5 offer comes their way. If that opportunity doesn’t materialize — maybe their season is derailed by injury — they could be left scrambling when the regular signing period begins on Feb. 5.

For basketball prospects, men or women, the early signing period currently runs Nov. 13-20. The regular period begins April 15, which would be perhaps one-third the way through their high school schedule.

And in basketball, the CIF says playoffs will extend only through the section level, and will not include state championships.

Ron Nocetti, executive director for the CIF, explained the reasoning for that in an interview with the Mercury News:

What started out with multiple plans came down to the one that everyone thought gave as many opportunities to as many students as possible to have close to a full season.

We didn’t want to do anything that would limit the section championships from being played in their entirety if it all possible. I think that’s why you saw the limit to the state events to just one week.

Some of our sports go straight to state events, like cross country, wrestling, track and field and swimming and diving. The others will be regional-based events.

High school sports officials have been discussing the issues for months, but the big picture gained some clarity last Friday when California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that no school will begin the fall term with in-class instruction due to the continued increase in coronavirus spread throughout the state.

California joins New Mexico as the only states which have postponed the fall sports seasons.

So far.

Don’t be surprised if others follow.

You also have to wonder what influence this decision could have on college programs and conferences, and the NCAA, which continue to tinker and tweak their plans and schedules but cannot know for sure — even now — whether the landscape will be safe enough this fall to play football.

The CIF has come to the conclusion that it’s simply not yet prudent to play.

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Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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