‘Who cares?’: Birmingham coach Jim Rose waves off football rankings

“Who cares?””

Those are the words repeated several times by Birmingham High football coach Jim Rose on Monday when asked to discuss seedings for the City Section Open Division playoffs that will be revealed on Saturday.

Rose, whose teams haven’t lost to a City Section opponent since 2017, has had enough trying to figure out CalPreps.com rankings. He said he clicked on his school and learned the trend line was pointing down after a 56-0 win over Taft. His team has outscored its four West Valley League opponents 211-14 and is ranked No. 6 with a 46-game unbeaten streak.

So when he says, “Who cares?” he really means it. His teams annually play all Southern Section opponents in nonleague games to prepare for City Section play. This season, the Patriots went 0-4. A young team has been making plenty of progress and figures to be right there in the end.

The City Section has a formula for figuring out its seeds. CalPreps is one tool. League finish also comes into play. Carson is ranked No. 1 by CalPreps over Narbonne but can’t go ahead of Narbonne in the seedings because the Gauchos will win the Marine League because of four forfeits.

The big battle in the Open Division is for the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds between Dorsey and Garfield. And when will a Marine League team that refused to play Narbonne in the regular season get to play the Gauchos in the playoffs. Narbonne will not have played in seven weeks before the playoffs. It might seem like a scrimmage for the Gauchos when they open play on Nov. 15.