6-3 to 0-9. This is how the score of Norco High’s football team, renowned and respected, turned out after CIF investigators came knocking, forcing them to forfeit several of their wins.
Here in the Southern Section, this past high school football season has been marked by frequent violations. While many schools were involved in this, such as Bishop Montgomery, which had five ineligible players and fired its head coach, among the more recent few was Norco High School.
News of their forfeiture trickled through discussions at Santiago. If you, as a reader, are a local student or staff member, this probably isn’t anything new, whether you actively follow the games or – this was in part due to unexpected (and unconfirmed) word of our football team playing against Riverside Poly in the CIF Playoff game on November 7th, but they trickled nonetheless.
Discussion didn’t last past that week, though. After going to other Sharks for clarification and receiving inconsistent evidence, it begged the question: why exactly was Norco High disqualified, going from winning 6-3 to losing 0-9 at that point in the season?
CIF Violations
When this news first came out, the violations themselves were ambiguous. They started as allegations against the school, which were then investigated by the district, along with the CIF office. Norco’s principal, Dr. Catherine Wallace, even addressed them as such during a parent meeting, recorded on Wednesday a couple of weeks ago at the time of writing.
“There were a couple of allegations that were brought forward regarding our football program,” she said. “Those allegations were investigated by our district and our CIF – our Southern Section – and it has been determined, because of these allegations and the result of the investigation, that our football program has had to forfeit nine of its football games.”
It was, more accurately, six of its wins, but that wasn’t much better. While it wasn’t directly said here if these allegations were confirmed, the LA Times included a statement from CNUSD, which “…was made aware of allegations of a CIF bylaw 510 violation involving the Norco High School football program… the alleged bylaw violation was confirmed.” CIF bylaw 510, or “Undue Influence” bylaw, is specifically for student transfer eligibility – in essence, coaches cannot have pre-enrollment contact with student players, nor can coaches offer inducements or benefits for recruiting said students to the school’s team, such as with money or special deals.
In short, this all comes back to student ineligibility, which, upon confirmation, led to Norco forfeiting its six wins this past season.
Impact
The results were disheartening for Norco’s football team and its families and detrimental to the school’s goals.
“The Cougars were on track to receive an at-large berth this season,” said Eric Paul-Johnson for The Press-Enterprise. “But with a 0-9 record heading into Thursday’s Big West Conference-North Division game at Vista Murrieta, those chances have been diminished but not eliminated.”
In contrast to this setback, though, Norco wasn’t entirely out of the game. In fact, they beat Vista Murrieta on October 30th, not so much despite their forfeit, but because of it. The Press-Enterprise also covered this, stating that, “With their playoff hopes diminished because of the forfeits, the Cougars were determined to play inspired football in what could be their final game of the 2025 season.” That final game against the Broncos turned out well for the Cougars after all, finishing the game 17/7 in their favor.
Closing Thoughts
While their forfeiture has dramatically impacted their finishing score and likely their standing in the Southern Section, it must be reiterated that Norco was not alone in its disqualification. The CIF office this whole prep season has been “cracking down on transfer paperwork,” says one article. Alongside Norco were other schools like Orange Lutheran or, again, Bishop Montgomery, whose entire season was cancelled, and their head coach was let go.
Though Norco has found itself among these schools due to student ineligibility, their team has still demonstrated a more than noteworthy performance this season, which goes to show that even a devastating setback like this one can be recoverable.
As of now, it’s unclear what else will come of this story, but in the meantime, there’s a lesson schools can learn from it: if the smallest mistake can cost a team their entire season, then a higher degree of careful recruitment is what the Southern Section needs to practice – especially to avoid another slew of CIF violations that made their mark on this past season.
