I agree with the idea that the rankings should be made conceptually with the thinking of head to head match-ups. Any of the top ten teams could win a single game, in the perfect conditions, if everything goes right for them that single day.
The full season records mean less to me as the teams develop differently over the season, injuries occur, players improve (or don't), many teams are much different at the the of November than they were in the beginning of September. Maybe this isn't fair to the teams that suffered injuries to significant players in the playoffs, but that's what the (sort of) weekly rankings are for.
I would look at as a snapshot of who is playing the best when the championships occurred, on that day if they played three times, five times who would win.
1) MS
2) LA
3) ESL
4) PR
With all this said, MS played LA for a second time. It is very difficult to beat a team twice in a season unless you are completely head and shoulders above that team. I don't have an opinion on who should be tops but I will make some statements regarding your top four. A lot of people are giving credit to Main South playoff run based feelings compared to reality. For starters how big is beating LWE when they lost to Bradley. Looking on film Bradley was never a top team which Bones made that clear on multiple occasions throughout the season. They also beat WA which could have gone either way meaning not much separation and Barrington who's credibility was sharpened by beating MS. It is only fitting MS come out on top the second time around.
LA- Throughout the season with close calls against MS, MC, and BR most question them being number one. The consensus was they were number one until someone beat them. Well it happened, and I feel if they played either one of those teams a second time, the results would be similar to MS. The one victory that made LA stand tall was GBW however all signs let to a different type of GBW team this year. The gave up almost 40 points to OPRF during the season. That told me that this wasn't the typical GBW defense this year.
Now I find it hard to see how these teams are head and shoulders better than teams that never lost. Start with PR, they dominated everyone that was in front of them. There is nothing more they could have done. Yes I feel they were one dimensional however they were great at. Very great at it.
Now ESL pretty much dominated everyone. They did have two close call with CBC who I think when healthy will give EVERY team in illinois problems and GN who started the year as Preseason #4 team. Even in those games ESL Defense shut down the run. They dominated the run all season and never allowed RB to get 100 yards. The closest was the RB from O'fallon who had 86 yards on 32 attempts. Now that may not seem like a huge deal but here are some stats.
Warfield from PC had 17
Back from CBC had 70 with 46 coming on one run
BW thousand yard rusher had 50
Rodgers from E'ville who ended the year with 1800 was 10 for 10.
Tricas (sp) from GN who ran over everyone had 56 total and a 50 yard touchdown.
I can go on and on but you get the point. They DOMINATED everybody run game this year. They did this will guys going both ways after the ACL injuries during the week 2 game with CBC. In the Qtrs. the score was 40-7 before Willowbrook gave it everything they had. They shut Benet out and the score was 27-0 in the championship before ESL shut down and PN got on the board.
Bottom line is I didn't see anything from MS or LA that says ESL Defense couldn't shut down their Run game and make them one dimensional. I also didn't see anything from MS and LA that says their defense would absolutely shut down the PR offense.
Outside of popular pick and emotions, NO ONE should have MS or LA 1 or 2 objectively. I will finish with saying ALL 4 teams were great this year and provide some good football to Illinois High School football fans. Looking forward to 2017.
