CIF-SS football: St. John Bosco, Mater Dei top High School Football America Preseason Top 100

Published Jul. 20, 2017 5:12 p.m. ET

Elijah Zabludoff

Can football come back already?

We're still just a little over a month away from the start of the CIF Southern Section football season on FOX Sports West and Prime Ticket but time has never stopped us from taking a peek at the preseason rankings.

In Jeff Fisher's High School Football America Top 100, St. John Bosco and Mater Dei are, once again, number one and two in the nation respectively. With Bosco and Mater Dei being atop the ranking for the last four years, I guess lightning can strike in the same place twice, or three, or four times.

Last season, for the first time since 2012, the Monarchs of Mater Dei finally dethroned the Bosco Braves as the kings of the Trinity League. With this win, Mater Dei handed the Braves their first loss in 28 straight Trinity League games.

For all intensive purposes, the 2017 season is shaping up to be a crash course to yet another installment of a Mater Dei vs. Bosco CIF-SS Championship. The question I always ask myself is: can Mater Dei finally beat Bosco on the big stage? My answer, even though Mater Dei did beat Bosco once last season, is still a no.

For the Braves, they are returning arguably two of their best athletes in QB Re-Al Mitchell, an Iowa State commit, and DB Jaiden Woodbey, an Ohio State commit, but have no shortage of athletes outside of these two. Even though Mater Dei returns 10 of 11 starters and the electrifying duo of QB J.T. Daniels and WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, the Monarchs will not have the firepower on both sides of the ball to compete with Bosco.

Both teams hail from one of the nation's toughest leagues and the talent loaded Pac-5 Conference, so we do know one thing: the battle for high school football supremacy will be a season-long journey.

Also in the top 100 from the CIF-SS are Corona Centennial (10), Narbonne (28), Mission Viejo (47), Long Beach Poly (54), Serra (77), and Chaminade (95)