5A (1,466 - 1,990)
1 - Quincy (Sr.) vs. 32 - Springfield (H.S.)
2 - Cary (Grove) vs. 31 - Chicago (Amundsen)
3 - St. Charles (North) vs. 30 - Collinsville
4 - Libertyville vs. 29 - Wheaton (Warrenville South)
5 - Oak Lawn (Richards) vs. 28 - West Chicago (H.S.)
6 - Batavia vs. 27 - Villa Park (Willowbrook)
7 - Geneva vs. 26 - Hoffman Estates (H.S.)
8 - Rockton (Hononegah) vs. 25 - Fox Lake (Grant)
9 - Des Plaines (Maine West) vs. 24 - New Lenox (Lincoln-Way Central)
10 - Chicago (Kennedy) vs. 23 - Rockford (Guilford)
11 - Chatham (Glenwood) vs. 22 - Chicago (Mather)
12 - Bloomington (H.S.) vs. 21 - Arlington Heights (Hersey)
13 - Pekin vs. 20 - New Lenox (Lincoln-Way West)
14 - Normal (Community West) vs. 19 - Addison (A. Trail)
15 - Machesney Park (Harlem) vs. 18 - Palos Heights (Shepard)
16 - Lake Forest (H.S.) vs. 17 -Bradley (B.-Bourbonnais)

4A (882 - 1,460)
1 - Sycamore (H.S.) vs. 32 - Freeport (H.S.)
2 - East St. Louis (Sr.) vs. 31 - Chicago (Goode)
3 - Kankakee (Sr.) vs. 30 - Chicago (Perspectives/Leadership) [Coop]
4 - Belvidere (North) vs. 29 - Country Club Hills (Hillcrest)
5 - Chicago (Morgan Park) vs. 28 - Maple Park (Kaneland)
6 - Peoria (H.S.) vs. 27 - Marion (H.S.)
7 - Washington vs. 26 - Dunlap
8 - Mahomet (Seymour) vs. 25 - Jacksonville (H.S.)
9 - Wauconda vs. 24 - Bensenville (Fenton)
10 - Crystal Lake (Prairie Ridge) vs. 23 - Glen Ellyn (Glenbard South)
11 - Burlington (Central) vs. 22 - Oak Forest
12 - Woodstock (North) vs. 21 - Calumet City (Thornton Fractional North)
13 - Troy (Triad) vs. 20 - Metamora
14 - Antioch vs. 19 - Crete (Monee)
15 - Grayslake (North) vs. 18 - Chicago (Corliss) [Coop]
16 - Highland vs. 17 -Lemont (H.S.)

3A (511 - 869)
1 - Chicago (Sullivan) vs. 32 - Taylorville
2 - Breese (Central) vs. 31 - Genoa (G.-Kingston)
3 - Chicago (South Shore) vs. 30 - Marengo
4 - Olney (Richland County) vs. 29 - Sandwich
5 - Dixon (H.S.) vs. 28 - Morris
6 - Waterloo (H.S.) vs. 27 - Mt. Zion
7 - Princeton vs. 26 - Chicago (Clemente)
8 - Rochelle vs. 25 - Johnsburg
9 - Monmouth (M.-Roseville) vs. 24 - Centralia (H.S.)
10 - Greenville vs. 23 - Columbia
11 - Rochester vs. 22 - Benton
12 - Carterville vs. 21 - Tolono (Unity)
13 - Richmond (R.-Burton) vs. 20 - Roxana
14 - Cahokia (H.S.) vs. 19 - Murphysboro
15 - Manteno vs. 18 - Chicago (Dyett)
16 - Coal City vs. 17 -Macomb

Congratulations and best of luck to the young man.

2A (350 - 500)
1 - Byron vs. 32 - Oregon
2 - St. Joseph (Ogden) vs. 31 - Dwight [Dwight/Gardner-So. Wilmington Coop]
3 - Farmington vs. 30 - Stanford (Olympia)
4 - Wilmington vs. 29 - Fairfield
5 - Bismarck (B.-Henning-Rossville-Alvin) vs. 28 - Flora
6 - Sullivan [Sullivan-Okaw Valley Coop] vs. 27 - Shelbyville
7 - Pecatonica [Du-Pec Coop] vs. 26 - Virden (North Mac)
8 - Williamsville vs. 25 - Niantic (Sangamon Valley) [Coop]
9 - Chicago (Marshall) [Coop] vs. 24 - Westville
10 - Nashville vs. 23 - Paxton (Buckley-Loda)
11 - Vandalia vs. 22 - El Paso (Gridley)
12 - Pana (H.S.) vs. 21 - Peotone
13 - Elmwood [E.-Brimfield Coop] vs. 20 - DuQuoin (H.S.)
14 - Eureka vs. 19 - New Berlin [Coop]
15 - Seneca vs. 18 - Carmi (White County)
16 - Taylor Ridge (Rockridge) vs. 17 -Monticello

Cross Bones said:

So the argument about public facilities and scoreboards being an advantage is fake news?

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No, because Althoff has worse facilities, which is the point

Public only 6 classes. Any eyes catching non-boundary or private I missed is appreciated.

1A (161 - 345 enrollment)
1 - LeRoy vs. 32 - Clifton (Central)
2 - Lena (L.-Winslow) vs. 31 - Catlin (Salt Fork)
3 - Johnston City vs. 30 - Fithian (Oakwood)
4 - Downs (Tri-Valley) vs. 29 - Galena (H.S.)
5 - Hardin (Calhoun) [Coop] vs. 28 - Mt. Sterling (Brown County)
6 - Maroa (M.-Forsyth) vs. 27 - Tuscola
7 - Camp Point (Central) vs. 26 - Bridgeport (Red Hill)
8 - Casey (Westfield) vs. 25 - Carthage (Illini West)
9 - Gibson City (Melvin-Sibley) vs. 24 - Stockton
10 - Arthur (A.-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond) vs. 23 - Carrollton
11 - Momence vs. 22 - Winchester [West Central Coop]
12 - Chester vs. 21 - Kewanee (Wethersfield) [Annawan-Wethersfield Coop]
13 - Rushville (R.-Industry) vs. 20 - Princeville
14 - Toulon (Stark County) vs. 19 - Sesser (Valier) [Coop]
15 - Lanark (Eastland) [Eastland-Pearl City Coop] vs. 18 - Warrensburg (W.-Latham)
16 - Greenfield [G.-Northwestern Coop] vs. 17 -Toledo (Cumberland)

firstdown21 said:

Neutral site for quarters and semis like Ohio does.

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Terrible idea. Play on a campus of one of the two teams. MC has won 15 straight playoff games - not sure how many were "away" -- but it certainly was significant .

doctor_d said:

I know it would never happen, but I’d love to see a coach like Racki take over a program like Momence or Dwight and see how he did after 6-7 years. Or better yet, a program like Plainfield Central.

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Long time viewer, hardly ever post. But I have many thoughts on this topic and the apparent advantages and disadvantages of both privates and publics, but one thing I would like to contribute is we do have this example. The guy that took over for Racki at Driscoll. Mike Burzawa won 3 state titles at Driscoll going 41-1 over a 3 year stretch. He took a job at Evanston after and has not won a playoff game in 16 years. He has 8 first round exits and 8 times he missed the playoffs. After Burzawa left, Driscoll ended their state championship run, so clearly he is a good coach. He ran a top notch program. He knows all about culture and how to succeed. It has not transferred to Evanston.

Cross Bones said:

"Culture" just seems to be a nebulous word that's being used as a synonym for winning. I was able to attend two high schools that I think had this "culture" but we've only won 2 championships between them so maybe we didn't 🤷🏿‍♂️

Admittedly I don't buy the coaching argument as I saw a coaching staff that was accustomed to handling Bradley switch to another school and get dominated by that same Bradley school they used to dominate. What changed?

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Yea, I mean it's never nit a multi-faceted thing. You can have a or b but not C. You can have C but not b. You can be a good coach and fail if you don't have other ingredients (I think a sport as large as football generally requires complete institutional support, at least for sustained success).

HotBeer said:

And let me just ask: Why did Dierre Hill choose to go to Althoff instead of Belleville East or West? I highly doubt it was the facilities, the breadth of AP classes, the uniform requirements... interested in your take.

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So the argument about public facilities and scoreboards being an advantage is fake news?

Far as I'm concerned he went to Althoff because he wanted to and that's his and his family's business. Why he didn't go to either of the Bellvilles, maybe he lived in East's boundary and couldn't go to West but wanted to. Or maybe vice versa, or he lived in neither.

But the point isn't why the kids choose whatever school they choose. The point is the option creates different types of enrollments that can't really be compared.

Snetsrak61 said:

Anytime someone brings up factors like culture and coaching, it shouldn't be read to as throw out enrollment or recruiting, jeez. Just that if recruiting and size were that big of factors the correlation would probably be stronger than it actually appears to be (I haven't modeled any formal correlation, but my gut based on data I have evaluated is a lot of the seemingly correlated effects are anecdotal and are not statistically correlative... At least for the data we have/use).

Click to expand...

"Culture" just seems to be a nebulous word that's being used as a synonym for winning. I was able to attend two high schools that I think had this "culture" but we've only won 2 championships between them so maybe we didn't 🤷🏿‍♂️

Admittedly I don't buy the coaching argument as I saw a coaching staff that was accustomed to handling Bradley switch to another school and get dominated by that same Bradley school they used to dominate. What changed?

HotBeer said:

Culture is not a commodity that some have more or less of.

Culture is what ACTUALLY constitutes the bogeyman of "recruiting" that gets thrown around on here. It's schools that care about football, take it seriously, invest in it, etc.

When public schools do that, football-oriented 8th graders choose their respective public school. When they stop, those kids go somewhere that takes it seriously if they have the option.

And yes, when you decline to do so for 20 years, and then look up and see that all the football kids want to go to Loyola, then it's an uphill battle.

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We are acknowledging that players go to certain private schools to play football. I don't think anyone disputes that. As a matter of fact that is THE crux of the discussion.

McEvergreen said:

I think this one is in the running for "strangest post" of the season. Edits and all. Weird 💆‍♂️

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Just as a note “weird” didn’t work well for the Democrats this election cycle. Just posting a year end tribute eliciting a “strangest post”?Thank you I guess.

Cross Bones said:

Don't know much about 1A but something tells me those publics aren't bustling with P4 players. Where just 1 can make all the difference in the world Althoff was beating 8A teams, but yes congrats to them on their first title since 1990. What's that you were saying about culture?

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And let me just ask: Why did Dierre Hill choose to go to Althoff instead of Belleville East or West? I highly doubt it was the facilities, the breadth of AP classes, the uniform requirements... interested in your take.

cornerrat said:

All... A math problem that would change year to year but with the amount of privates (and does this proposal include non boundried football playing publics?) would it change the win threshhold greatly to make the postseason? Ratsy

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Well for 32 total private schools I ended up dropping 6. I should be down 32 overall so I should end up dropping 26 public schools qualifiers (I'll run those brackets later I hope).

So publics lose 4.3 per new class. Private schools lose 3 per class. One year snapshot, but over 256 I think that's actually pretty substantial and I'd expect public schools would lose more qualifiers relative to private schools in any year under that hypothetical.

Cross Bones said:

The 3 notables have a combined 16 state championships in football. Mt. Carmel has 16 alone. But yet, they have the same culture 🤔

Yes the same issue today existed in 2021. Loyola today has nearly 2000 students while Rochester has almost 800. Probably around a 1100 student difference and didn't look like they belonged on the same field despite having the same culture. If a dozen 8A schools (that dont have the culture) would have done that to Rochester then....it's not about the culture, it's about the talent base.

Don't know much about 1A but something tells me those publics aren't bustling with P4 players. Where just 1 can make all the difference in the world Althoff was beating 8A teams, but yes congrats to them on their first title since 1990. What's that you were saying about culture?

Click to expand...

Culture is not a commodity that some have more or less of.

Culture is what ACTUALLY constitutes the bogeyman of "recruiting" that gets thrown around on here. It's schools that care about football, take it seriously, invest in it, etc.

When public schools do that, football-oriented 8th graders choose their respective public school. When they stop, those kids go somewhere that takes it seriously if they have the option.

And yes, when you decline to do so for 20 years, and then look up and see that all the football kids want to go to Loyola, then it's an uphill battle.

mullin17 said:

Classic FB Head Coaches/ADs in the old ESCC conference are slowly dwindling away. Mattio, Sharp, Bitto, Goforth, Hennessey, etc.
Not to be a back in my day guy, but will there ever be 20+ year head coach at 1 school in the ESCC/Catholic League moving forward? Edit: Just noticed Racki has been there 20

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Yep, he hit 20 this year. Of course Naz isn't "old" in ESCC terms I guess we're all old dogs at this point.

Anytime someone brings up factors like culture and coaching, it shouldn't be read to as throw out enrollment or recruiting, jeez. Just that if recruiting and size were that big of factors the correlation would probably be stronger than it actually appears to be (I haven't modeled any formal correlation, but my gut based on data I have evaluated is a lot of the seemingly correlated effects are anecdotal and are not statistically correlative... At least for the data we have/use).

Snetsrak61 said:

Lucky for you this czar has the data to show this;

v2.0 corrected for data error that wasn't picking up DePaul and Routt Catholic. Boylan Catholic and one of Bloomington Central Catholic or Ottawa Marquette are bumped (they appear to be tied across all metrics). JCA up to large class (thank goodness)




Out of Playoffs
One of Marquette/BCC
Rockford (Boylan Catholic)
Decatur (St. Teresa)
Chicago (Payton)
Aurora (Marmion Academy)
Chicago (Noble/Bulls)

Click to expand...

In addition to those out of the playoffs, you would have a situation where Ignatius doesn't even qualify for them yet they destroyed the number 1 seed of the large school division in post season play.

It always amazes me how willing boundaried public schools are to throw their non-boundaried public school brethren under the bus so as to avoid bad optics of singling out private schools only. Wimps.

Snetsrak61 said:

Good catch. Ihsa has them listed under 2 different names on different parts of site so I didn't pick them up off the multiplier page back to enrollment. Possible I could have missed others, but can be hard to check because the IHSA multiplier page includes teams that don't sponsor football. So I have to go line by line to find any other missing ones.

Click to expand...

I think I fixed them all. Eyeballing my multiplier schools who I can't tie back to the schedule... I think they are all non football schools... At least for private. Public/open boundary I'm not as familiar with.

eagles2k3 said:

Just football for now. Two 16 team brackets for non boundary schools.

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Lame. I can't imagine it will get past the legislative committee level if it only addresses classification in one sport. I would hope that the IHSA doesn't want to open that can of worms whereby separate playoffs happen in one sport and not others.

Still doesn't bring him back. 310 million helps, I guesa.

Cross Bones said:

The 3 notables have a combined 16 state championships in football. Mt. Carmel has 16 alone. But yet, they have the same culture 🤔

Yes the same issue today existed in 2021. Loyola today has nearly 2000 students while Rochester has almost 800. Probably around a 1100 student difference and didn't look like they belonged on the same field despite having the same culture. If a dozen 8A schools (that dont have the culture) would have done that to Rochester then....it's not about the culture, it's about the talent base.

Don't know much about 1A but something tells me those publics aren't bustling with P4 players. Where just 1 can make all the difference in the world Althoff was beating 8A teams, but yes congrats to them on their first title since 1990. What's that you were saying about culture?

Click to expand...

I've learned on this board that just trying harder and scheduling tough teams wins state titles. Talent is unimportant.