De La Salle will stay the course after Open Division loss: No transfers, no abandoning the veer

CONCORD — In an era where a high school football team can pivot overnight on the strength of a transfer portal splash or a schematic reboot, De La Salle isn’t blinking. 

Not after losing a second straight CIF Open Division title game. Not after a lopsided defeat to Santa Margarita. And not amid a growing online chorus calling for change. 

If there’s a reset button to be pressed, De La Salle coach Justin Alumbaugh isn’t looking for it. 

Following Saturday’s blowout loss to Santa Margarita, Alumbaugh made it clear he won’t be sacrificing the legendary program’s identity to try and win a state title – whether that means bringing in transfer players or moving away from the team’s long-standing veer offense. 

“Our focus is internal. I’m the head coach, so I’m trying to make De La Salle and our standard as best as we can possibly be without any deviance from who we’ve been in any way shape or form,” Alumbaugh said.

As high school football fans and alumni chimed in, questioning whether De La Salle had fallen behind by staying the course, Alumbaugh framed continuity as a feature not a flaw. The Spartans, he said, will remain rooted in development, culture and a system that has defined the Concord school for decades – losses included. 

“I think what we’re seeing a lot in high school athletics is not educational athletics.” Alumbaugh said. “I have to fight my own competitive instinct sometimes. I don’t want to lose. … I’m trying to focus on creating a legitimate, real Friday night lights atmosphere where we’re going to coach our kids, get the best out of them and hope for the best.” 

It was clear from the very beginning of Saturday’s championship game that De La Salle was outmatched. Santa Margarita looked bigger, faster and more skilled at nearly every position. 

The result: The Spartans fell behind big early and eventually lost 47-13. 

No team from Northern California has won the Open Division state championship game since De La Salle defeated Centennial-Corona in 2015. Since then, the high school landscape in Southern California has changed drastically. 

The Southern Section has loosened its rules when it comes to transfer players, even having a public transfer portal that shows the eligibility status of players who have formally enrolled in their new schools. 

When De La Salle lost to Mater Dei in last year’s Open Division title game, the Monarchs boasted two players in De La Salle’s backyard. Jordan Davidson, now a running back at Oregon, and USC-bound wide receiver Kayden Dixon-Wyatt both are Bay Area natives, with the latter having ties in the Concord area. The last nine Open Division champions have come from the Trinity League – home to the Southern Section’s top programs. 

When asked if De La Salle would accept mass transfers into his program, Alumbaugh made his stance clear. 

“I will not participate in that under any circumstances,” he said. 

The same philosophy extends to the Spartans’ offense. 

The veer has long been synonymous with De La Salle, but has faced criticism online since De La Salle’s loss Saturday. Santa Margarita’s own official football X account posted a video of Arizona commit Dash Fifita getting a sack with the caption, “This ancient offense has nothing on Dash Fifita,” which sparked a lively debate in the post’s comment section. 

Former De La Salle standout and NFL safety TJ Ward praised the veer for laying the foundation of the program, but questioned whether De La Salle can win a state title using it. 

“We made our bones out in the split veer. That’s how we became such a great program,” Ward said on the Safety First Podcast. “But now we gotta do other things. Especially having the speed we had on the field. … We gotta change some things at De La Salle because I’m not going down to Saddleback anymore to see us keep losing.”

Ward added Saturday’s loss cuts deeper than the final score. 

“That performance was completely unacceptable,” he said. “I feel bad for the seniors and a lot of players on the team because it wasn’t even their fault. We just had no prep and no adjustments during that game.”

Alumbaugh said he harbored no hard feelings toward Ward and appreciated his take. But even as the Spartans will continue to evolve their offense, the veer will still be the main feature of their scheme

“One of the great neutralizers in sports is the option because you can pick people not to block and so that will always be,” Alumbaugh said. “This year we ran more open sets and those things because our quarterback (Brayden Knight) was able to handle it really well. But you have to have adaptability.

“You have to be able to spread the field, both horizontally and vertically. And that’s something that we always talk about. But we’re still going to run the veer.”

For Alumbaugh, the conversations have never been about keeping pace with the Southern California powers, though that doesn’t diminish his desire for De La Salle to hoist a state championship trophy. 

It is about resisting what he sees as a growing pull away from the purpose of high school sports altogether. 

“I think the pressure to win and the pressure to succeed can sometimes be very consuming,” Alumbaugh said. “I also don’t want to diminish from educational athletics. You get a kid that transfers in and replaces Bubba Vargas. What does that say about me? So in that regard, yeah, I hope we rein this in a little bit.”

That belief shapes everything from how De La Salle builds its roster to how he encourages his athletes to live beyond football. Alumbaugh said most of his kids play multiple sports and that he actively pushes back on the specialization of high school athletics. 

“Ninety percent of my team plays another sport. I have a couple kids that are like, ‘Well, maybe I’ll just focus on football.’ And I’m like, ‘Absolutely not,’” he said. “Athletics is such a beautiful thing, and we have to do a better job of preserving it. There’s so much outside pressure, and as a parent, I understand that you want to do what you think is best for your kid. You desperately do.

“I think as a whole, we need to do a better job of just calming this down. There’s almost hysteria about getting to the next level, the next level, the next level, the next level. What about this level? What about today? What about my experience today? What about my experience tomorrow? What about the friendships I gain? What about the experiences that I get with people? That is really, really important at this age and at the younger ages. I think it feels a lot like we’re on this hamster wheel where it’s like, let’s calm this down a little bit, and let’s focus on what matters.”