8A :Brother Rice (13-0) vs. Loyola (10-3), 7 p.m. Saturday
7A: Nazareth (12-1) vs. St. Charles North (10-3), 4 p.m. Saturday
6A: Cary-Grove (13-0) vs. Crete-Monee (10-3), 1 p.m. Saturday
5A: Montini (12-1) vs. Joliet Catholic (9-4), 10 a.m. Saturday
4A: IC Catholic (13-0) vs. Bishop McNamara (12-1), 7 p.m. Friday
3A: Byron (13-0) vs. #1 Monticello (13-0), 4 p.m. Friday
2A: Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley (13-0) vs. Decatur St. Teresa (13-0), 1 p.m. Friday
1A: Forreston (11-2) vs. Camp Point Central (12-1), 10 a.m. Friday

It's impressive that Cary Grove got to the championship game with having to move their stud QB to WR. JC is going to get curb stomped by Montini...again.

I don't like how 7A evolved and will blind myself to the results. Pulling for the fellow Carmelites over Montini, though.

I find it crazy that there is 8 classes. How many schools are in each class?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

The simple version.

There are 523 schools playing football eligible for IHSA playoffs this season. The top 256 teams by record qualify for the playoffs. Then the top 32 enrollments are placed in 8A, next 32 in 7A etc.

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I've always thought it would be interesting if you get a NFL legend like Cowher to start a private school in Illinois somewhere. Enrollment is just say 60 kids, but 50 of them play football and he coaches. Then they end up going 9-0 in the regular season and get put in 1A. Championship year after year. Kids are graduating and go to Florida, Michigan, Stanford, etc. Other small schools are complaining that it isn't fair. What would the IHSA do?

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

So a team does not know what class they are in until the playoffs start?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

You have a pretty good idea of where you will be but there are some bubble teams that don't know. My HS got bumped to 6A when they had been ranked in 5A all year.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Id say about 90% know. You can both go off historical data and projections that are done by people. We are a bubble team that floats between two classes depending on the year. Since our enrollment has dropped consistently the last 10 years, it has been more the lower of the two classes the last few seasons.

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They would eventually end up in 8A due to success factor.

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The AP poll just takes all of the teams in the state and divides by 8. This year an abnormal amount of small schools made it that usually do not which pushed a lot of teams up from 4a to 5a and 5a to 6a. At the other end you had some 5-4 big schools that got pushed out due to playoff points (total wins of your opponents) because of this.

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I always thought that it was based enrollment and the avg enrollment of the opponents on your schedule and was pretty much set in stone in August?

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

I can't root for any 3 or 4 loss teams. Playoffs should start at 7-2 with some allowances for losing to a team with a deep playoff run the year before.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Don Beebe did this with Aurora Christian. He got Steve Tasker's kid to come all the way from New York to play for him. They got bumped up to 3 or 4A (i think this was when there were only 6 classes) and they dismantled everyone they played. Now that he is gone they are back to 1A.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Certain enrollments it is clear where you will be. If you have 2500 kids you will be 8a. 2000 you will be 7a 1700 will be 6a. 1100 you will be 5a etc. "Football enrollment" was used for a few years but has not been that way for over a decade due to scheduling difficulties caused by it. Football is the only IHSA sport that doesn't know what class they are in pre-season because it is only sport everyone does not not make the playoffs.

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You can never base anything off the year before. Rice was 2-7 and a dumpster fire last season. This year they are 13-0 and favored to win a state title. The IHSA system is not perfect but it is better than most states. It allows for teams like Crete to schedule way above their class every season in nonconference and not worry about making the playoffs.

If we only allowed 7-2 and better in, half of the big school finalist would not be playing next Saturday.

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I guess I don't mind 6-3. I really don't like 5-4 getting in.

It's not as bad as basketball where everybody gets in. I think you should have to win at least a third of your games and half your conference games to be guaranteed into the basketball playoffs.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

JCA went 5-4 because all the teams in their conference is 6A-8A. Then they play teams in their class and beat the shit out of them. That is until they play Montini. Montini is their Daddy.

I agree with you in theory on basketball. However it will never happen due to how difficult scheduling is already with everyone making it. Not nearly as bad as football though.

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JCA does well vs good public schools their size. Good private schools their size? Not so much.

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There is still no reason they can't separate the private and public schools. Have 6 public classes and 2 private classes. The public schools get completely fucked in 4 and 5A

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Public schools keep trying to get districts passed for football. Even though they get soundly voted down year after year. I am surprised they have not put much effort into this.

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I've told this story a thousand times but the WIAA realigned Kenosha St. Joe's and Racine St. Cat's (or the other way around) into Badger's conference and they vaporized us in basketball every time. Those who can recruit and those who can't should be split or it's no fun.

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This

look at a team like Loyola. They have made it to the finals four years in a row yet almost never send a kid on to play anything higher than Ivy League. They are at no talent advantage over the majority of public schools. It is entirely based on coaching. Public schools should have the advantage in that area because they can afford higher salaries and stick a coach in some no work job to even further supplement income.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Loyola has had 9 kids in the last 4 years go D1 or 1aa. That is more than all but a handful of schools in this state.

The Evanston coach took over after winning 3 consecutive state titles at Driscoll. He has yet to win a playoff game in 11 seasons their.

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You have some supporting material on that? Among other items, I'd be interested to see the names of those handful of other schools.

You list D1 and 1AA as if they are the same thing. As I said, they send kids to the Ivy League but that is hardly a reflection of comparative talent. The universe of high school talent that can play football, maintain eligibility and pick up a part of the tab at an Ivy League school is not very large.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

private schools also have enrollment modifiers that typically up them a class. looks like 6 of the 16 teams are private anyway. so, it's not having the desired effect.

Montini is everyone's daddy.

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@audioidkid

That statement, half true, does not change the fact that privates should not compete in a public tournament and the IHSA should separate their classes into 6 public and 2 private classes. Teams playing by different sets of rules should not play in the same tournament.

One class, fuck all this 'everybody gets a trophy' shit.

Or two classes, one for "real schools" and one for "pussy schools"

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Some more evidence of this is MC. MC gets stars once in a while, but for years, most of their kids who went on to play in college played I-AA, D-2, D-3, or NAIA. They also have coaches who have other careers but help out because they enjoy it.

(Suburban) Public schools used to have an advantage in terms of facilities, but that's gone now, the way Catholic schools have expanded their facilities.

I actually think the public-private argument is good for interest in high school sports. At some Catholic schools, it might be bad for academics, though.