High school football in San Diego technically begins Thursday night, when Torrey Pines takes on Honolulu Radford in Hawaii.<\/p>\n
The first local games will be played Friday night. Here\u2019s a league-by-league look at our picks for the 2026 season, along with MaxPreps.com\u2019s team-by-team and league-by-league ratings:<\/p>\n
Avocado West League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Mission Hills, 87.22<\/p>\n
2. Carlsbad, 89.58<\/p>\n
3. La Costa Canyon, 89.85<\/p>\n
4. Torrey Pines, 73.70<\/p>\n
5. San Marcos, 79.44<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 83.95<\/p>\n
Western League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Cathedral Catholic, 98.47<\/p>\n
2. Lincoln, 92.56<\/p>\n
3. Point Loma, 77.04<\/p>\n
4. Mission Bay, 53.24<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 80.32<\/p>\n
Avocado East League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Oceanside, 71.53<\/p>\n
2. Rancho Bernardo, 72.55<\/p>\n
3. Del Norte, 63.88<\/p>\n
4. Poway, 72.03<\/p>\n
5. El Camino, 63.27<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 68.49<\/p>\n
Grossmont Hills League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Granite Hills, 85.68<\/p>\n
2. Helix, 69.10<\/p>\n
3. Steele Canyon, 60.27<\/p>\n
4. El Capitan, 35.68<\/p>\n
5. Mount Miguel, 73.36<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 64.81<\/p>\n
Eastern League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. San Diego, 55.67<\/p>\n
2. La Jolla, 62.44<\/p>\n
3. Scripps Ranch, 62.85<\/p>\n
4. St. Augustine, 66.05<\/p>\n
5. Christian, 52.81<\/p>\n
6. University City, 51.14<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 58.40<\/p>\n
Coastal League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Santa Fe Christian, 62.13<\/p>\n
2. La Jolla Country Day, 42.97<\/p>\n
3. Bishop\u2019s, 51.47<\/p>\n
4. Army-Navy, 50.96<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 51.88<\/p>\n
Imperial Valley League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Central Union, 54.25<\/p>\n
2. Holtville, 53.64<\/p>\n
3. Imperial, 52.72<\/p>\n
4. Brawley, 40.64<\/p>\n
5. Calexico, 23.37<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 44.92<\/p>\n
Metro Mesa League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Mater Dei Catholic, 62.21<\/p>\n
2. Montgomery, 40.74<\/p>\n
3. Eastlake, 40.20<\/p>\n
4. Olympian, 38.97<\/p>\n
5. Otay Ranch, 33.73<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 44.37<\/p>\n
Palomar League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. San Pasqual, 49.55<\/p>\n
2. Ramona, 50.61<\/p>\n
3. Valley Center, 42.03<\/p>\n
4. Mt. Carmel, 37.41<\/p>\n
5. Escondido, 26.99<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 41.31<\/p>\n
City League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Madison, 58.79<\/p>\n
2. Patrick Henry, 43.17<\/p>\n
3. Mira Mesa, 33.13<\/p>\n
4. Hoover, 28.55<\/p>\n
5. Crawford, 23.56<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 37.44<\/p>\n
Mesa Pacific League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Hilltop, 34.34<\/p>\n
2. Chula Vista, 31.43<\/p>\n
3. Sweetwater, 32.44<\/p>\n
4. Bonita Vista, 24.35<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 30.64<\/p>\n
Pacific League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Maranatha Christian, 37.71<\/p>\n
2. Coastal Academy, 37.05<\/p>\n
3. Classical Academy, 25.43<\/p>\n
4. Escondido Charter, 20.56<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 30.15<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grossmont Valley League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Valhalla, 20.71<\/p>\n
2. Grossmont, 47.29<\/p>\n
3. Santana, 29.61<\/p>\n
4. West Hills, 28.42<\/p>\n
5, Monte Vista, 27.87<\/p>\n
6. El Cajon Valley, 6.98<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 28.82<\/p>\n
Central League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Morse, 34.83<\/p>\n
2. Coronado, 36.39<\/p>\n
3. Kearny, 29.97<\/p>\n
4. Canyon Hills, 29.38<\/p>\n
5. Clairemont, 9.67<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 28.04<\/p>\n
Valley League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Rancho Buena Vista, 29.33<\/p>\n
2. Westview, 38.74<\/p>\n
3. Fallbrook, 27.53<\/p>\n
4. Vista, 12.97<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 27.14<\/p>\n
Desert League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Palo Verde, 33.09<\/p>\n
2. Vincent Memorial, 27.09<\/p>\n
3. Mountain Empire, 13.54<\/p>\n
4. Calipatria, 12.84<\/p>\n
5. Southwest-El Centro, 7.03<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 17.15<\/p>\n
Metro Pacific League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. Southwest-San Diego, 18.43<\/p>\n
2. San Ysidro, 15.56<\/p>\n
3. Mar Vista, 16.36<\/p>\n
4. Castle Park, 0.06<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: 12.60<\/p>\n
Sunset League<\/p>\n
U-T prediction, School, MaxPreps rating<\/p>\n
1. O\u2019Farrell Charter, 2.35<\/p>\n
2. Victory Christian Academy, -0.66<\/p>\n
3. Foothills Christian, -6.42<\/p>\n
4. Orange Glen, -4.48<\/p>\n
5. Tri-City Christian, -16.21<\/p>\n
MaxPreps league average: -5.08<\/p>\n
JOHN MAFFEI<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High school football in San Diego technically begins Thursday night, when Torrey Pines takes on Honolulu Radford in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2044,181,74,76,75,127],"class_list":["post-437703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-high-school-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}