The Southern California Boys HS season will soon be underway with some significant changes.

The initiative to get the California Interscholastic Federation continues apace, and has expanded. That initiative involves teams following CIF rules in how they populate and support their teams. The teams that follow these protocols are in the Varsity Red competition, and are 100% single-school. Last year, there were seven Varsity Red teams, all in the San Diego area. This year, that San Diego Conference is down to six. Just two years after winning the conference, Fallbrook has moved to Varsity White following a reduction in school support.

However, the rest of that conference remains, with Cathedra Catholic, La Costa Canyon, Poway, Torrey Pines, St. Augustine, and Del Norte rounding out that group. But the big news is that an entirely new Varsity Red conference is set to start in Los Angeles. Mira Costa, which won the SoCal Varsity White Division in 2016, joins St. John Bosco and View Park Prep - both also teams that played in Varsity White last year.

Two other Varsity White teams, from the Inland Conference, come in. They are Roosevelt HS and Citrus Valley. While this expands how far those teams have to travel to play, those connected to the league say this was a worthwhile tradeoff for the teams, as they now have a longer season and more consistent competition. And finally, the Redondo Union joins. This is a completely new team that was kick-started by Mira Costa Head Coach Duke Dulgarian. Dulgarian started Redondo because he wanted a rival for Mira Costa that was nearby. Redondo is a complete startup, but will be a 100% single-school team.

Meanwhile, in the Varsity White Division, changes are afoot also. The Varsity White teams are ostensibly single-school, but league rules say they can have as much as 25% of their players coming from other schools. This division has expanded from 18 to 26. But the expansion has evened out the conferences. Varsity White Los Angeles is very different, since many of the teams that played last year are now in the LA Varsity Red. The only team still in the LA Varsity White is Wilson HS. The Dead Rabbits, now called the Granite Hills Dead Rabbits, have moved from the Varsity White Inland to LA. Meanwhile, Artesia, Crespi, Saint Anthony, and Santiago are all brand new teams.

The arrival of these new teams is the result of a lot of work within Rugby SoCal. According to sources, the ironic part of this process is that schools with no rugby teams have sometimes been more receptive to supporting rugby - mostly because there's no historical baggage left over from old coaches (both on the rugby team and on other sports teams). These new teams started with the development of an interest club on the campus, and then built from there.

The Inland Varsity White conference is no more. Instead, two teams have moved to Varsity Red, one to Varsity White LA, and another converting to a more single-school model. There is also now a Varsity White Orange County, with with a mix of previous Varsity White teams, new programs, and teams moving up from Varsity Blue.  

Varsity White San Diego is now two conferences, one of eight teams, and another of seven. The Varsity White San Diego North includes four teams from the old Varsity White San Diego Conference - Alta Vista, Mission Vista, Rancho Barnardo, and San Pasqual. In addition, Fallbrook comes in from Varsity Red, and two teams, Carlsbad and San Marcos, come up from Varsity Blue - the league Rugby SoCal runs for new programs just starting out.

Three Varsity Blue teams help kick-start the Varsity White San Diego South - Patrick Henry, Westview, and Coronado. High Tech High, University City, La Jolla, Mira Mesa, and Norsemen round out the conference. Many of these teams are off-shoots of clubs that play in the second half of the season.

The club system in Southern California is created out of single-school players who want to keep playing later in the spring. Generally you will see players from two schools merge to make a club for the second half. However, there are some clubs that really operate only as clubs, and the players and coaches have been frustrated by the short club season - often only four games and then the playoffs. The response has been to back-fill the season by getting those club players to help build single-school teams for earlier in the season. Seeing as Varsity White allows for a team to have 25% players from another school, this has turned out to be workable.

So the upshot is, that the Southern California Boys single-school competition at the top level has expanded from 25 teams in 2015-16 to 33 in 2016-17, with five conferences instead of four. The league season is now at least five games, and as many as seven.