The 2026 Tulare County high school tackle football season is less than three weeks away from kickoff.
Here are 50 things you need to know before the new season commences later this month.
1. Eighteen teams play 11-man football in Tulare County:
2. Alpaugh, a school located in southwest Tulare County, fields an eight-player squad.
3. Sixteen Tulare County programs advanced to the section playoffs last season:
4. No Tulare County team won a section title last year, but Woodlake and Orosi did advance to the section championship game in their respective divisions.
5. The super-league Central Yosemite Conference will make its debut this season.
6. That mega conference — which includes CVC, El Diamante, Golden West, Hanford, Lemoore, Mission Oak, Monache, Mt. Whitney, Porterville, Redwood, Tulare Union and Tulare Western — has been split into two leagues with an upper- and lower-tier division.
7. League placement will vary by sport based on a competitive equity model and can change after every year based on postseason playoff rankings (football is every two years).
8. In football, the upper division — the East Yosemite League — is comprised of CVC, Golden West, Hanford, Redwood, Tulare Union, and Tulare Western.
9. El Diamante, Lemoore, Mission Oak, Monache, Mt. Whitney, and Porterville are in the West Yosemite League football conference.
10. This new Central Section league format/realignment will run from 2026-2030.
11. There are two new head football coaches in Visalia — Jesse Lira at El Diamante and Tim Adebayo at Mt. Whitney.
12. Lira, who most recently served as an assistant at Reedley College, is a former head coach at Farmersville and Lindsay.
13. Adebayo, a Fresno native who played collegiately at the University of Hawaii, was most recently on the coaching staff at Clovis North.
14. Former Mt. Whitney head coach Nathan Chamberlain, who led the Pioneers to an outright EYL championship in 2023, joined Travis Anderson’s coaching staff at Golden West in the offseason.
15. Anderson is now the longest-tenured head football coach in Visalia — he is entering his fifth year with the Trailblazers and has an overall record of 26-19 in four seasons.
16. Golden West won a combined 19 games from 2024-25, which includes a 10-win season and an undefeated EYL title in 2024.
17. Golden West quarterback Jayden Najera enters his senior year as Visalia’s all-time career-leading passer with 6,503 yards and 75 touchdowns.
18. In his first season last fall, Redwood head coach Curtis Allen guided the Rangers to an outright EYL championship.
19. Under Allen, the Rangers won their first playoff game in six years and advanced to the Central Section Division II semifinals, culminating an outstanding 2025 season with a 9-3 record.
20. Tulare Union head coach Darren Bennett is the Central Section’s active winningest coach with an overall 257-131-1 record.
21. The section’s all-time wins record belongs to former Woodlake legendary coach Leo Robinson, who won 290 games from 1962-2002.
22. Bennett, who is entering his 32nd season with the Tribe, began his high school head coaching career at CVC in 1991.
23. Tulare Union has had three straight seasons with at least eight wins or more, including a nine-victory campaign in 2025 which saw the Tribe advance to the Central Section Division II semifinals.
24. Tulare Union senior receiver Demaje Riley, a two-time Bob Mathias Award Winner as Tulare County’s most outstanding football player, is verbally committed to Fresno State.
25. Riley enters his final high school season with 3,453 career yards receiving and 40 touchdowns.
26. Riley, rated as a three-star prospect by the recruiting website 247sports.com, has 185 career receptions and is averaging nearly 19 yards per catch.
27. The 5-foot-9, 150-pound Riley will be a four-year starter.
28. Tulare Western had, perhaps, the most impressive run during this summer’s 7-on-7 passing circuit, winning Fresno State’s Battle of the Valley 7v7 Tournament in June, which featured 55 teams.
29. The Mustangs also won 7-on-7 passing tournament championships at Lindsay and Cal Poly.
30. That success was spearheaded by returning starters and quarterback Juju Hernandez and wide receiver Amarion Taylor.
31. Hernandez, a junior who has started since his freshman season, is coming off an outstanding sophomore year where he threw for 2,697 passing yards and 23 touchdowns in a six-win season.
32. Taylor, a towering 6-foot-2 threat at wideout and three-star prospect, is one of Tulare County’s premier college football recruits with six reported scholarship offers from Cal, Utah, Fresno State, Colorado State, UNLV, and Idaho.
33. Taylor emerged as one of the section’s elite receivers during his sophomore year, catching 69 passes for 1,177 yards receiving and 10 touchdowns.
34. Taylor headlines a Tulare Western receiving corps that also includes junior Domanik Martinez and senior Landan Seechan.
35. That unit, anchored by Taylor, may be Tulare County’s best receiving corps this season.
36. Redwood senior lineman Landon Guenter is one of the section’s top offensive tackles.
37. The 6-foot-5 Guenter is verbally committed to Washington State.
38. Guenter is rated as a three-star college football recruit and has landed six scholarship offers from Washington State, Fresno State, Idaho, San Diego State, UNLV and Northern Arizona.
39. Redwood junior Jairus Brooks is one of Tulare County’s most explosive players.
40. During his breakout sophomore campaign, the 5-foot-9, 150-pound Brooks caught 31 passes for 413 yards and five touchdowns and also added 16 tackles, two interceptions, including a pick-six, and two punt returns for touchdowns.
41. Brooks is a two-time state meet qualifier in track who ran a personal-best 10.74 seconds in the 100-meter dash in May.
42. Strathmore head football coach Jeromy Blackwell has a chance to earn the 200th victory of his career this season.
43. Blackwell enters his 26th campaign with the Spartans with an overall head coaching record of 193-79.
44. CVC head coach Don Arax is in year three with the Cavaliers.
45. Arax, who coached at Bullard for 24 years before joining CVC in 2024, has compiled an overall 191-140-1 head coaching record.
46. CVC continues to be one of Tulare County’s most successful football programs.
47. The Cavaliers have won at least one playoff game in every season since 2016.
48. That will likely continue this fall with a rushing attack led by what is perhaps Tulare County’s top backfield of seniors Ja’khari Burrell, Shondel Hogan, and Josh Hilvers.
49. Those three combined for nearly 1,700 yards rushing and 19 touchdowns last season.
50. Burrell, who has a scholarship offer from Eastern Washington, led the way in 2025 with 930 yards rushing in a breakout junior season.
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: 50 things to know about the 2026 Tulare County football season
Reporting by Vongni Yang, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Vongni Yang, Visalia Times-Delta | USA TODAY Network
