NationalHSFootball.com
– Dallas Jackson, NationalHSFootball.com
Longtime followers of national high school football know the deal: Your placement in the final rankings can sometimes hinge on things outside your control.
Over the next two weeks, NationalHSFootball.com will look at the teams from the start of 2008 through the recently completed 2013 season and place them in an overall Top 25.
Not only will we find out the best team of the HSFB100 era – we’ll find out the best teams. Which years were stronger than others. Which great teams had the unfortunate fate of playing in the same year as an all-time great.
| No. 25 — Corona (Cali.) Centennial, 2008 | No. 5 in HSFB100, 15-0 |
Looking Back: The senior-heavy Corona Centennial team punctuated its 2008 season with a victory over Concord (Cali.) De La Salle in the Open Division Bowl and placed No. 5 in the HSFB100 for the final poll of the season.
Defeating the Spartans was a coming of age for a program that had several quality seasons prior to the breakout.
Vontaze Burfict was the No. 9 player in the country. View his Rivals.com profile.
Martinez threw for just under 3,000 yards in the Matt Logan offense with 28 touchdowns versus just seven interceptions. He added another 750 yards on the ground with 12 touchdowns on the season.
Burns carried the ball 296 times in what was a surprisingly balanced offensive attack. He totaled 1886 yards and scored 29 touchdowns.
Marvray hauled in a team-high 67 passes for 1212 yards. Fellow seniors Geshun Harris and Nick Beasley paired for another 79 catches and nearly 1300 yards.
The defensive side of the ball was paced by five-star linebacker Vontaze Burfict among 10 seniors that included defensive tackle William Sutton, defensive end Ben Letcher, and defensive back K.J. Vaifale who all went on to play college football.
Burfict led the team with 159 tackles his senior season and was one of five players to hit triple digits.
Defining Game: Defeating De La Salle was the defining moment for the program and one that came at the result of a very different attack than the rest of the season.
In the 21-16 victory, Martinez only threw the ball 21 times while the Huskies controlled the clock and pace of play with a season-high 42 rushing attempts showing that it could be physical in the trenches with a fundamentally sound De La Salle team.
The week prior Centennial defeated Temecula (Cali.) Chaparral for the second time that season — the only two losses for Chaparral came at the hands of Centennial — to push the team to the CIF Open Bowl.
Rankings Rewind: Corona Centennial was the victim of a poor strength of schedule when stacked against other teams in the 2008 rankings. The talent was there and the signature win was as well but when other programs have talent and better results against an equal — or better — slate of games they tend to find their way higher up the ladder.
The 2008 season was the high-water mark for the program as it has been unable to get back to the same level of national success even with some very talented teams. The defense has never been as good as this group.
The Countdown of the Top 25: View the complete list of teams.
The Varsity Board: Post your thoughts on Corona Centennial being ranked at No. 25.
