California high school football teams with combined 1-19 record are one win away from state championship game

St. Pius and St. Augustine will play in the CIF State SoCal Regional Division 4-A final on Saturday. The winner will advance to the state championship game.

St. Pius X entered the playoffs 1-9 before winning four games in a row and winning the CIF Southern Section Division 8 title. / Rene Morales

It's like the CIF State office knew what it was doing with this matchup ... with a wink emoji.

St. Pius X, a small private school located in the greater part of Los Angeles, Calif., will host St. Augustine of San Diego in the CIF State SoCal regional Division 4-A final on Saturday at 6 p.m. in a matchup that will see two teams with a combined 1-19 regular-season record face off for a spot in the CIF State title game.

Heading into Saturday's game, St. Pius holds a 5-9 record and St. Augustine is 4-10. But that's not what it looked like a few weeks ago when the high school football playoffs started. St. Pius went 1-9 in the regular season and St. Augustine went 0-10. St. Pius went on to win the CIF Southern Section Division 8 title and St. Augustine won the CIF San Diego Section Division 3 crown.

St. Augustine was outscored 308-86 in the regular season.

• REGIONAL BOWL GAME SCHEDULE

The regional bowl games serve as an unofficial state championship semifinal. The winner will advance to take on the winner of the NorCal regional game between Kerman (12-2) and Sonora (11-2).

The CIF State Division 4-A final is set for December 14 at Long Beach Community College in Southern California.

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?

The answer is competitive equity, which is a newer playoff system used by the CIF Southern Section that uses data and computer rankings based off the current season to place teams in their appropriate division to make for competitive games.

The result of this system can put teams that are usually in higher divisions, but having a down year, in lower playoff divisions. It can also put teams that are more suited for lower divisions, in a higher playoff division, if they're having a great year.

In theory, St. Pius is a product of playing a strong schedule that allowed it to be more prepared for lesser competition when it was berthed into the Division 8 playoffs.

St. Pius' Calpreps ranking is 96. When the CIF creates the playoff pairings for playoff divisions, the teams that earn automatic qualifiers are placed first. If there are still spots available within the 16-team field, at-large teams are placed in order of their Calpreps rankings - highest to lowest.

St. Pius' strength of schedule rating sits at 17.2, which is higher than all of its playoff opponents except Cypress (18.1), which St. Pius beat in the first round.

Serrano, the team St. Pius beat in the CIF sectional final and finished the season 9-4, is ranked 104 on Calpreps with a strength of schedule rating of 11.9.

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