A high school football team in California will miss out on the playoffs after being forced to forfeit all of its wins, barring what sounds like an inevitable appeal. The situation at Norco remains unsettled and there are conflicting reports about how this all went down.
It sounds like there will be a fight.
Regardless of how this high school football drama plays out over the next few days, the chances of reinstatement are slim. There may not be enough time to reach a resolution before the postseason.
Norco High School dropped to 1-9.
The Cougars compete in the Southern Section of CIF competition. They were likely to get an at-large bid to the Division-III playoffs at 7-3.
However, Norco was forced to forfeit its first nine games of the season for the use of an ineligible player and dropped from 6-3 to 0-9. It recorded a valid win on Thursday night to finish the year at 1-9.
Although it is currently unclear who exactly was deemed ineligible or why, the infractions likely correlate to an ongoing crackdown across the state of California.
According to Los Angeles-based sports reporter Tarek Fattal, Norco violated Bylaw 202 and Bylaw 510. Bylaw 202 refers to falsified documentation. Bylaw 510 refers to undue influence, which can essentially be defined as illegal recruiting through the use of inducement.
A parent whose son lost playing time to a transfer supposedly snitched on the program.
I received a similar account of what happened from multiple people in my DMs. They were not willing to go on the record. Neither the CIF nor the school itself are able to speak further about the investigation.
A prominent California high school football parent contradicts this narrative.
Norco wide receiver Blake Wong is rated as a three- or four-star prospect in the college football recruiting Class of 2027. He already has eight scholarship offers from schools like Michigan State, Toledo, Arizona State and Ohio State.
A man by the name of Louie Wong, who I assume is Blake’s father, offered a different perspective on the violations and how they came to exist.
He claims the Cougars are only being punished for a violation of Bylaw 510, not 202. He also claims there will be an appeal because the CIF was not able to prove the violation.
“All our transfers were home checked, document checked, and interviewed and 202 was not substantiated,” Wong wrote. “Appeals are in the works because we don’t believe 510 has been proven.”
Wong also says it was not a disgruntled parent who brought the complaints to the CIF.
“That is false, that player transferred to Norco last year and was replaced by a program kid,” he said. “He was starting in a package and played himself out of that role. A lot of our parents don’t even know who the complainant is.”
His account of what happened directly contradicts what I have been told by other people with ties to the program. I don’t really know who to believe but I would imagine the truth will come out in coming days.
CIF playoffs will begin on Friday, Nov. 7. Norco is likely going to miss out on the postseason unless it can file — and win — an appeal by the end of the weekend.