With help from son of Troy Polamalu, St. Augustine goes from 0-10 regular season to San Diego Section champion

Competitive equity model, computer rankings and Saints emerge big winners after Pai Polamula scores touchdown in Division 3 championship win over San Pasqual

St. Augustine (purple) went from 2023 State Regional Division 1-A finalist — shown here in 21-20 loss to eventual state champion St. Bonaventure — to an 0-10 regular season in 2024, only to win the San Diego Section D3 championship on Saturday. / Photo: Justin Fine

The St. Augustine Saints of San Diego, along with two other squads, made news a month ago for making their section playoffs despite going 0-10 during the regular season.

The Saints made even a bigger splash Saturday with a 13-7 victory over San Pasqual at Southwestern College to win the San Diego Section's Division 3 championship.

The Saints (4-10) proved the San Diego Section's new competitive equity model that utilizes computer data is more than sound by winning their second straight section crown despite being outscored 308-86 in the regular season.

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St. Augustine, the seventh seed of a 12-team bracket, won its fourth straight game Saturday after playoff wins over La Jolla Country Day (16-0), Holtville (10-6) and San Diego (20-16).

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A touchdown run by sophomore Pai Polamalu, son of former Pittsburgh Steelers All-Pro safety Troy Polamalu, and two field goals from freshman kicker Callen Moore paved the way to Saturday's win.

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"When you're in a long losing streak like that, it's easy to hit the bottom," longtime college coach but first-year Saints' leader Ron Caragher told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "We stayed the course and only tried to control what we could control. ... These guys know that it's not how you start; it's how you finish."

So how did the Saints even qualify for the playoffs? In the sections' middle of seven 11-man divisions that is based on best-to-worst competitive model?

The new playoff system utilized the CalPreps.com computer rankings which paved the way for teams with losing and even winless records. Two others besides St. Augustine — Mira Mesa and Fallbrook — were also winless. Eighteen others of the 64 teams selected also had losing records.

The computer rankings takes into consideration, among other things, strength of schedule and obviously not wins and losses, causing many, including local coaches to voice their displeasure. The San Diego Section coaches were part of a group who recommended the use of the computer rankings.

Mira Mesa, by the way, went 1-1 in its D4 playoff run to finish 1-11 and Fallbrook lost a 34-33 humdinger of a first-round D5 game to Monte Vista to finish 0-11.

"Having a playoff game after going winless is a little ridiculous," Johnson told the Union-Tribune when the pairings were announced.

San Diego Section Commissioner Joe Heinz told the newspaper at the time: "This is our first year doing CalPreps. We'll review things after the season — just like we do after every season. The Advisory Committee will go over everything."

St. Augustine, meanwhile, still has more of its season to go. As one of the state's 48 section champions, it moves on to the CIF Regional Bowl Championships, which take place next week. A victory there would vault the Saints into a state-championship game.

Regional playoff pairings will be announced Sunday afternoon.

A year ago, no one would have blinked at St. Augustine reaching the state finals.

The team was one of the strongest in the section, winning a Division I title before losing in a regional bowl game to eventual champion St. Bonaventure, 21-20.

But popular head coach Ron Gladnick was let go after the season due to a highly public rift with the school's administration. Many of the team's top players transferred out, leaving the Saints starting over with far less talent.

They hired Caragher, a former backup quarterback at UCLA, where he was an assistant coach. Caragher also coached at Kentucky and was the head coach at the University of San Diego for six seasons and San Jose State for four.

He obviously knew what he was doing, but it just took time. Mostly he was able to keep his players confident.

“We didn’t let those 10 losses define us,” senior linebacker Malosi Iuli told the Union-Tribune. “We didn’t let wins and losses define us. We were focused on the championship.”

The cupboard wasn't left completely bare after Gladnick's departure.

Polamalu, also a standout basketball player, had a whopping 125 tackles to go with seven interceptions from his safety spot in the team's first 13 games this season. He also had seven pass deflections, two fumble recoveries and five forced fumbles.

He had two interceptions in the team's semifinal win over San Diego.