The best games on the Week 6 schedule:

No. 9 Orange Lutheran (2-3) vs. No. 6 Mater Dei (3-2)
Friday, at Orange Coast College, 7:30 p.m.

Outlook: Is this the start of the journey to the three-way tie for the Trinity League title? We already know how this story ends.

Orange Lutheran beats Mater Dei, which beats Servite, which beats Orange Lutheran, leading us to the Saturday morning coin toss.

Is this the year the cycle ends?

If it does, it is up to Mater Dei, which starts league with Orange Lutheran and Servite. (And I thought Newport Harbor had a tough league-opening stretch.)

We will know a lot about the Monarchs after the first two weeks.

What we know so far is that the Monarchs have been a little inconsistent. They’re 3-2, but needed late drives to defeat Cypress and L.A. Jordan.

On the other hand, they could and probably should have defeated No. 1 Edison. They led by 12 in the third quarter.

Now, which Mater Dei team are we going to see in the Trinity League?

Orange Lutheran has a tough start due to injuries and illnesses knocking quarterback Bobby Wheatley and two-way starter Garret Gilliland from action.

They lost to Redlands East Valley on the last play of the game and to Narbonne of Harbor City in double overtime.

Will things start to turn their way this week?

Links to the rest of The Calhoun Six:  

No. 20 Corona del Mar vs. No. 22 Laguna Hills

No. 11 Tustin vs. No. 25 Canyon         

No. 15 Esperanza vs. No. 1 Edison

No. 4 Los Alamitos vs. No. 13 Newport Harbor

No. 7 Dana Hills vs. No. 12 Tesoro

MATER DEI (29-0) VS. ETIWANDA (25-4)

Site, time: A.B. Miller High of Fontana, 7:30 p.m.

Outlook: The Monarchs, ranked No. 1 in the state and the nation, beat San Clemente, 75-48, in the first round; Upland, 85-52, in the second round; and Rancho Verde of Moreno Valley, 72-65, in the quarterfinals. Mater Dei 6-foot-3 junior Gary Franklin, who committed to USC, scored 23 points and 6-10 senior North Carolina signee David Wear added 19 against Rancho Verde, last year's II-A champion. Etiwanda beat Lakewood, 78-37, in the first round; Dana Hills, 77-69, in the second round; and Lynwood, 94-72, in the quarterfinals. The Eagles have won 13 in a row. They lost to M.L. King of Riverside in last year's I-A final, in overtime. Perris Blackwell, a 6-foot-9 senior who signed with University of San Francisco, leads Etiwanda with 15 points a game. The winner plays in the I-AA final on March 7 at the Honda Center.

• Division I-A semifinal capsule
• Division II-AA semifinal capsule
• Division III-AA semifinal capsules
• Division III-A semifinal capsule
• Division IV-AA semifinal capsule
• Division V-AA semifinal capsule
• Division VI-AA semifinal capsule
• Division VI-A semifinal capsule

ORANGE LUTHERAN VS. MATER DEI
AT SANTA ANA STADIUM

They save Best Picture until the end of the Academy Awards. This one has all the makings of an Oscar-worthy performance. We had Mater Dei as our preseason No. 1 team in the county. It just as well could have been Lutheran. These teams appear to be that close, going into the season. If they are still ranked 1-2 – no matter the order – when this one rolls around, it will be because they both survived challenging nonleague schedules and got through the first four weeks of the Trinity League unscathed. So there could be a lot at stake here. You've read about the star players already; there will be a lot of future Pac-10 stars on the field. You know that programs this good are run by excellent coaches. Games like this make Orange County such a great place for high school football.

Related:
• All Football Kickoff '08 articles

MATER DEI VS. SERVITE
AT CERRITOS COLLEGE

The schedule says this game is at Angel Stadium. But the wild guess here is that the Angels will be involved in Major League Baseball postseason play, thus making the stadium field off-limits for any other activity for the month of October. Everybody wearing a Mater Dei red shirt or a Servite Credo visor knows that Servite has not beaten Mater Dei since 1988 – before any of this year's players were born. One day, the Friars will beat the Monarchs. They came oh-so-close a couple of times, most recently at Angel Stadium in 2006 when Mater Dei prevailed in overtime. Anybody who says this is not a rivalry because of the one-sided series results has not been to a Mater Dei-Servite game. This is about as intense as high school football gets in California. Everyone knows about Matt Barkley, but they wonder about his receivers. Hey, they wondered about that in 2007, too, but Barkley still set a bunch of school passing records in '07 partly because the receivers got open and made catches. Look for the Monarchs receivers to do the same in '08. The feeling here is that Servite's offense is going to be quite productive, too. Junior Cody Fajardo might emerge as one of the county's more dynamic quarterbacks. Both teams have excellent athletes on defense, too. So, is this the year?

Next: Week 7

MATER DEI VS. CENTENNIAL OF CORONA
AT SANTA ANA STADIUM

One of the crazier games of 2007 happened when these two met last year. Mater Dei 51, Centennial 37. There were a season's worth of big plays, and everybody went home emotionally exhausted. Centennial went on to win the CIF-Southern Section Inland Division championship, and averaged 55 points a game in the playoffs. The Huskies are ranked No. 1 in the Inland Division, and Mater Dei is No. 4 in the Pac-5 and No. 1 in our county preseason rankings. Centennial has linebacker Vontaze Burfict, one of the top defensive players in the state. Graduation took some key offensive players, but the addition of quarterback Taylor Martinez, a transfer from Cajon, should help make the Huskies offensively formidable again. When you think of quarterbacks, of course one's mind turns to Mater Dei's Matt Barkley who won just about every conceivable football award as a junior last year, and he is going to be better this year. This actually is Centennial's home game, but Huskies coach Matt Logan realized that no location in the Corona area could house the large crowd this one will draw. Kudos to Logan for doing what's best for the many fans who will see this game, and who will be thoroughly entertained by what they see.

Next: Week 3

Orange County has seen some outstanding quarterbacks, including three who went on to win Heisman Trophies and many others who played in the NFL. But none has been as noteworthy as Barkley going into a senior year. Barkley was a Trinity League player of the year, was the county offensive player of the year and was named Gatorade football player of the year and Gatorade athlete of the year – as a junior. He passed for a school-record 3,560 yards last season when he completed 214 of 340 passes (63 percent). Barkley is rated as the No. 1 recruit in the nation by many scouting publications and services, and committed to USC. The only mountain left to climb – a CIF-Southern Section championship.