In its initial year, like the Bowl Championship Series before it, the CIF State Football Championship Bowl Games have been exposed.

Assuming De La Salle from Concord and Oaks Christian of Westlake Village finish the season undefeated, the highest-rated high school football teams in California, according to USA Today and MaxPreps.com, will not play each other for a state title.

The way the state football championships are set up, three teams from the north (Central Coast and above) will play three teams from the south on Sat., Dec. 16, at the Home Depot Center in Carson. The games will be televised on FSN West.

Section commissioners-there are 10-will meet Sun., Dec. 10, to determine pairings for the three games. To qualify for a state title game, schools must win their section championships. After that, it's up to the commissioners.

When the CIF finally approved the games in May 2005- there hadn't been a state football championship since 1927-it established three divisions, and the criterion for every division was enrollment. Division I represents each region's largest schools, Division III the smallest.

Oaks Christian, with an enrollment of 670 high school students, qualifies as a Southern Division III team. De La Salle has slightly more than 1,000 students, so its falls into Northern Division I status. Per CIF rules, the school's enrollment is doubled because it's an all-boys institution.

On page 6 of the CIF State Football Championship Bowl Games handbook, under the heading: Selection Information, it states, "Schools will be required to participate in the divisions that have been established. Moving up in classification will not be allowed."

According to CIF Director of Communications Emmy Zack, competing in a preclassified division is standard in all CIF state championships.

"Take a school like Oaks Christian," Zack said. "They are nationally ranked, but they're a small school so they play in Division III.

"Could they compete, based on their ability, at the Division I level? I'm sure they could. But we don't allow that. We play with like-sized schools to keep the playing field level."

Of course, when public schools battle private schools, sometimes it's best to throw enrollment numbers right out the window.

Nevertheless, while it would be nice for the CIF to be able to slide the divisions around based on state rankings, however subjective those are, doing so would create other issues.

For example, let's say Oaks Christian and De La Salle were allowed to play each other; we'll call it "fantasy football." Who would the Southern Division I team match up against? Certainly not the Northern Division III school.

What if the top-ranked teams both came from the same region? That would mess things up, too. Although this high school foot

ball fan would like to see California's two best teams settle things between the lines, especially considering one school is right in our own backyard, it's not going to happen with the current setup.