How a California high school won its sectional title after a 1-9 season

Keyshawn Johnson sat down with St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy head football coach Devah Thomas, who led his team to its first CIF-Southern Section championship title after an 0-8 start to the season and a 1-9 final record.

How did St. Pius — a small, co-ed private Catholic high school hailing from south Los Angeles with roughly 520 students — accomplish such a feat? 

First of all, its strength of schedule was strong enough to earn an at-large berth into the postseason, per Sports Illustrated. 

“People just can’t believe it,” Thomas said on the latest edition of “All Facts No Brakes.” “I don’t make the rules, I just follow them,” Thomas added of Calpreps, the computer system used to create the playoff divisions.

“I figured if we won one or two (games) that we can get in because our strength of schedule was one of the top in California,” Thomas said. “Every team that we played (in the regular season) made the playoffs except for one out of nine teams — all in a higher division than us except for one team. … [There are] teams that went 7-3 that didn’t make the playoffs. I mean, they played the Little Sisters of the Poor, and so it caught up to them.

“They want competitive equity. …. The CIF is running with it … [and] we fit the criteria.”

Competitive equity is a newer playoff system that places teams in their appropriate division to make for competitive games. If there are still spots available within the 16-team field, at-large teams are placed in order of their Calpreps rankings from highest to lowest. St. Pius’ Calpreps ranking is 96. Its strength of schedule rating is 17.2, which is higher than all of its playoff opponents except Cypress (18.1), which St. Pius beat in the first round, 21-14.

St. Pius defeated Serrano in the CIF-SS Division 8 final on Friday night, 38-19. Junior quarterback Jassi Williams threw 25 passes to six different receivers for 444 yards and scored a combined five touchdowns (four passing, one rushing).

Thomas went on to share why he felt St. Pius would go on a run if it got into the playoffs. “You just saw the grit, the grind of these kids,” he said. “They never gave up. They came every Monday after a loss and were still motivated.”

The Warriors’ football team consists of just 30 total players, with just two seniors on the whole team.

Next up is the state regional game on Saturday night. St. Pius will host San Diego-based St. Augustine, which went 0-10 in its regular season, in the Division 4-A matchup.

St. Pius previously reached and lost the Division 14 final in 2019 and Division 7 final in 2021, which was Thomas’ first season. Thomas has won playoff games in every season since then.

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