Football: De La Salle is already showing off its ability

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

What’s the point of holding a CIF state championship bowl game if everyone knows who’s going to win?

Concord De La Salle, which usually doesn’t start very fast, opened its season with a 41-7 rout of San Jose Bellarmine, the team that barely lost to Santa Margarita in last season’s Division I bowl game.

De La Salle is everyone’s favorite to be selected for the Open Division bowl game in December at the Home Depot Center. I expect all the other teams in Northern California to be lobbying not to play De La Salle in a regional playoff game and go for a Division I regional berth instead to avoid getting crushed by the Spartans.

In Southern California, I’m sure there are a few teams that would love to play De La Salle, such as Santa Margarita, whose coach, Harry Welch, beat the Spartans when he was head coach at Canyon Country Canyon.

But Santa Margarita has a far tougher road ahead. The Eagles will have to survive a brutal stretch of games in the Trinity League, the Pac-5 playoffs and then a regional playoff game likely against the Inland champion. Then, awaiting them would be De La Salle. Talk about tough challenges ahead.

-- Eric Sondheimer