The penultimate week of the high school football season has arrived.
Which means league races are heating up and the CIF-Southern Section playoff picture is coming into focus.
Fifteen automatic playoff berths across the Northern Area’s five leagues will be clinched in the next two weeks and nearly all 25 local teams are still alive.
As the only 3-0 teams left in the Channel and Tri-County leagues, Westlake and Fillmore, respectively, can clinch league titles with wins on Friday, Oct. 23, against Santa Barbara and Dos Pueblos.
Although both those games are difficult road trips to Santa Barbara County.
Meanwhile, the Marmonte, Coastal 101 and Citrus Coast teams still feature foes racing neck and neck as they make the final turn towards November.
The Star’s Super 10 high school football rankings entering Week 9
Newbury Park and St. Bonaventure can set up a de facto winner-take-all Marmonte League championship game in Week 10 by beating Oaks Christian and Pacifica, respectively, this week.
Agoura and Calabasas can do the same in the Coastal 101 League by beating Oxnard and Buena, respectively, this Friday.
Conversely, Grace and Nordhoff take center stage Friday.
The Lancers and Rangers will decide the Citrus Coast League title — for the third straight season — at Ojai Community Stadium.
While those eight first-place teams are all but in the postseason, there are another group of teams playing for their postseason lives this week.
In the meeting of the Marmonte’s 0-3 teams, Simi Valley (5-4) could really use a win at Bishop Diego on Thursday to improve its playoff chances.
With Westlake looming next week and a loss to fellow 2-1 Santa Barbara on its record, Moorpark (6-2, 2-1) needs to end its losing streak to Ventura to improve its chances of an automatic berth.
Oak Park’s trip to Camarillo on Friday, a meeting of the Coastal 101’s third-place teams, looks like a playoff play-in game.
As Royal hosts San Marcos and Del Sol visits Carpinteria, both teams can take a big step towards the postseason by winning.
Riding high off a rare 15-0 week, Jostradamus needed only to look at the Week 9 schedule to be brought down to Earth.
Nearly half the games feature matchups of teams with identical league records.
Whether it is 3-0 (Nordhoff-Grace), 2-1 (Ventura-Moorpark, Royal-San Marcos), 1-2 (Del Sol-Carpinteria), or 0-3 (Simi Valley-Bishop Diego, Rio Mesa-Thousand Oaks, Santa Paula-Hueneme), seven of the 15 games on the schedule feature teams with the same league marks.
He needs all the luck he can scrape together this week.
On to the Week 9 picks. Let’s see how much Joe Knows.
Thursday, Oct. 22
Simi Valley 35, Bishop Diego 21: Bishop Diego has won four of the teams’ five meetings since 2020.
Friday, Oct. 23
Pacifica 31, St. Bonaventure 30: Buckle up. The last two regular-season meetings of the West County’s powerhouse programs have been decided by two (37-35) and one point (24-23).
Newbury Park 28, Oaks Christian 24: Newbury Park has never beaten Oaks Christian in six meetings all-time.
Westlake 28, Santa Barbara 21: Defensive Warriors? Westlake has allowed just two touchdowns in three league games.
Moorpark 27, Ventura 24; Will Tristan Savage return from injury to again deny Moorpark a win over the Cougars?
Rio Mesa 17, Thousand Oaks 14: Last year’s 21-13 Lancers win was the teams’ first meeting in two decades.
Calabasas 38, Buena 24: Dual-threat Dominik Hardy has five TD passes and five TD runs in three league games.
Camarillo 35, Oak Park 31: The teams’ first meeting since the 2024 playoffs could decide an automatic playoff berth.
Agoura 35, Oxnard 14: The teams’ first meeting since 1979.
Fillmore 27, Dos Pueblos 24: The teams have split their league meetings the past two seasons.
Santa Paula 20, Hueneme 17: The Cardinals lead the series 14-8 and have won the last two meetings.
Royal 31, San Marcos 24: The teams’ first meeting since 2004.
Nordhoff 45, Grace 42: Nordhoff has given up 100 points in losses to Grace over the past two seasons. Can they deliver a title-winning defensive performance against the Lancers?
Del Sol 42, Carpinteria 21: The Jaguars gave up a program-record 62 points in last year’s loss, including 41 in the first half.
Santa Clara 21, Channel Islands 20: The Saints are 1-9 against the Raiders over the past 50 years.
Last week: 15-0 (1.000).
This season: 119-24 (.832).
Joe Curley — aka Jostradamus — writes The Star’s high school football picks column. He can be reached at joe.curley@vcstar.com. Follow him at @vcsjoecurley on Twitter/X, Instagram/Threads and Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Jostradamus has a lot to digest for Week 9 high school football picks
