Why should teams like Le-Win even have football if they can't compete with the likes of LWE, right? This is a very poor take. No one is comparing teams like LW and Byron to MC, Loyola, and LWE. Those teams also don't care to be compared to those teams and are beyond happy when they win a title. Only people like you diminish their accomplishments.
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This is so ridiculous. In general, no one silently pretends that the smaller classes are "world beaters" outside of their classification. The rest of us silently accept this, because we're not jerks.
Most years, it is accepted that the larger classification schools are "stronger" than the smaller classes. In fact, in head-to-head competition, this year's 8a favorite beat the 7a favorite, who in turn beat the 6a favorite, as I'm sure you're aware. Despite this, you find it your most holy duty to rub it in the kids and teams faces that they're playing for the Xth place trophy, and probably wouldn't be able to beat Loyola. They are competing for something that's meaningful to themselves, their program, and their town.
Some years a team is so exceptional that there are discussions how they would compete in a higher class. Typically the loudest arguers for the particular team are homers, and can be taken with a grain of salt.
I have expanded on the number many times over the years. Most recently, I posted on October 29 about the first round games:
"There were 52 [54, 56, 52, 52] games decided by margins of 30 points or greater. A total of 33 [36, 33, 32, 31] games finished with margins of 40 points or greater. An additional 59, [54, 38, 15, 20] teams scored fewer than 10 points."
52 games with margins of 30 points or more is 41%.- 59 games where a team scored fewer than 10 points is 46%
Is it unrealistic and blasphemous to suggest that we TRY to get down to 32 first round games (average of four per class), which is 25% of all games, decided by margins of 30 points or more? Is it wrong to want 12% and not 46% of teams to score 10 points or more in a first round playoff? We were at roughly 12% and 16% six and seven years ago, but we now have 39 more teams scoring fewer than ten points in a first round playoff game than we had in 2017.
Yes, I understand that there are blowouts in rounds beyond the first. The first round is the only round we can do anything about relative to classification of playoff qualifiers, so that's why I'm focused on that round.
True, there are too many blowouts. I have also claimed, many times, that I understand that they can't be eliminated although you and others seem to have a mental block when it comes to that.
You say potayto and I say potahto.
My most holy duty. What a crock of crap.
Nobody is going to think they are playing for an xth place trophy anymore than they might now. All they know is that they are in the playoffs and having a chance to compete against teams of a similar competitive level instead of strictly of a similar size.
And that would not change if they were playing in classes against teams that are closer in competitive level.
What is your solution? Or are you just here to gripe, then shut down anyone who disagrees with your most holy opinion and contends that the current playoff system is better than the alternatives
My solution is a new classification system for playoff qualifiers. See @stonedlizard for the details.
I don't have the power to shut down anyone, nor do I have the desire. Feel free to argue your point as long as you want and refrain from ad hominem attacks as you are getting close to doing when you refer to my "most holy opinion" and my "most holy duty", and I will argue civilly as long as others do the same.
Why should a team like LeWin be content with winning 1A more years than most when they are so far above all the other schools in their class?
I'm not diminishing anything. Like you, I'm acknowledging that they can't be compared with the schools you mentioned. Unlike you, I'm not squeamish about using the word "weaker."
Of all the gripes and proposed changes Ive seen people have about the IHSA playoff system (home/away, seeding, north/south brackets) this crusade you are on about reducing the blowouts is by far the worst and most non-sensical.
I am going to concede the fact that this is your opinion, however, what data or info are you using to base your assumption on that we need to get the % down from 46% to 12%? The CFP doesn't even a blowout rate of 12%. Of the 27 CFP games played, there have been 4 (15%) games decided by 30pts or more. There have been 12 (44%) games decided by 20pts or more. There have been 7 (26%) games where the losing team scored fewer than 10 points.
Additionally, if all you care about is the first round, then who cares? A 5-4 team squeaked in to the playoffs then got blownout by whatever 1 seed was waiting on them. You think the NCAA tourney was adopting a new system to only allow 32 teams in when the 16 seeds had been 0-Forever up until a few years ago?
How are you not? If you take the top 32 teams from the top 3 or 4 classes, how are you not telling the 1a-4a champions that they are competing for a consolation prize? Its basically a BCS or CFP system.
I scored twice on a fullback dive from over 50 yards out while playing in the Detroit Catholic League. Never discount the fullback. LOL. But seriously....I get your point. However, there were some of us who played liked Alstott back when playing like Alstott was about to be what Alstott made it.
And why do I remember that? Because those were the two least painful runs ever for me. Lol
The 46% number is the % of first round games this year in which teams scored less than 10 pts. The 12% number is where we were on that exact same stat in 2017. It is NOT a blowout rate. The blowout rate for first round games this year decided by a minimum of 30 pts is 41% and I'd like to see if we could reduce that to 25%.
I care about all the rounds, but, AS I EXPLAINED TO YOU PREVIOUSLY, the IHSA can't do anything about who plays in a given class past the first round. That's why I'm focused on first round blowouts and encouraging a revised classification system designed to create better competitive balance within the classes.
The only reason why they might feel that way is because they are accustomed to the current system. Trust me, they'll get over it as soon as they start winning more playoff games because the teams that traditionally kept them from winning the competitively imbalanced enrollment-based classes have been moved up.
You can choose to look at the glass as half empty and label it a consolation prize, or look at it as being half full and call it a championship of similarly competitive schools. Do you really think that all those moderately competitive 1A schools that the competitive outlier Le-Win has been beating up on for years are going to miss Le-Win if they are placed in a class with similarly competitive schools (which they also stand a reasonable chance of winning), or will they be happy that they have a better chance of winning 1A without Le-Win and with a handful of less competitive 2A qualifiers added to their class? Same with Rochester in 4A.
Its not a matter of semantics or personal perspective. Your proposed system crowns 1 champion and the rest are consolation prizes. Your theoretical "1a" champ is the best of the least competitive teams. Its a BCS/CFP bowl system and trying to tip toe around that is silly. Im sure the teams who play in the Autozone Bowl or the Duke's Mayo Bowl have a good time and enjoy the perks that come with it. But they all know they arent really playing for, or being considered, a true champion if they win that game. How is your system any different?
The CURRENT 1A champs are, for the most part, the best of the least competitive playoff qualifiers. You are kidding yourself if you think otherwise or if you think that kids don't see through that.
Right now, we have 256 playoff qualifiers every year. Instead of putting them in eight classes so that 8A features the most competitive 12.5% of those qualifiers, 1A has the least competitive 12.5%, and the classes in between each having their appropriate 12.5%, we put them in classes by enrollment. This creates situations where the competitive level is not spread out equally among the classes and that changes from year to year. What is fair about that? Why should, for example, the 160th most competitive qualifier be in the same playoff class with the 256th most competitive qualifier for no reason other than enrollment? Doesn't seem fair at all for the least competitive qualifier who has to play the 160th most competitive qualifier in round one. What's right and good about the 160th most competitive qualifier winning 1A when they could probably win 2A and have a good shot of winning 3A?
If anyone is tip toeing, it is you and anyone else who supports an enrollment-based classification system because they are worried that a system that classifies teams according to true competitive level might hurt the kids' feelings when they learn that 1A is designed to have the least competitive 12.5% of qualifiers. What about the feelings of kids whose teams are getting blown out by scores of 54-0, 58-6, 72-0, and 48-0 in first round games simply because folks like you think that the class champs below 8A might have their tender sensibilities offended if they were classed according to their true competitive level?
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The reason is that enrollment is an objective measurement, and "competitiveness" is a subjective measurement. If you debut some new format with the stated goal of putting the "top 12.5% most competitive teams" in 8A, it's impossible to prove you've actually done that, regardless of whatever system (like StonedLizards) you come up with to approximate "competitiveness". So in reality "Why am I in class XA" has to be answered with "because our model says so".
The current logic is that the teams who succeed are the ones who get the most out their "human capital", against a peer group of teams with similar access to "human capital". The multiplier (while highly imperfect in my opinion) is the IHSA's attempt at accounting for the ability of some non-boundaried schools to influence selection of their human capital. I don't think anyone is in love with the current system, but it is 100% objective. The question "why am I in 8A" can be answered by pointing to a single figure reported by the school themselves.
Organizing classes based on "competitiveness" is a much more contrived exercise. Suggestions like StonedLizzard's proposal (while creative and appreciated) are complex and obscure the requirements to make the playoffs. I think there is also a whole host of issues that crop up when you combined the metrics to qualify and be seeded in the playoffs (W/L) with the metric to classified (Enrollment) with a single metric ("power points"), but that's another post.
I don't think the status quo is perfect, or even "right". I would love to chip away at blowouts. But I do have an appreciation for the need of organization like the IHSA to have very direct, tangible protocols when you're trying to make 500+ constituents happy (or at least, not outraged).
The biggest issue is that it is hardwired into everyones brains that you classify teams by enrollment.
You are correct that IHSA has no incentive to make it happen. It's easier to use enrollment, and like it or not, there is a clear-cut system. They could use some version/combination of the rankings services to do it, regardless of enrollment, but then you have all the "why them, not us" complaints.
Look at NCAA Men's basketball. There are 350-ish D-1 schools. Using all the data, and the committee, it gets narrowed down to 68 teams in March. Nobody cares that Gonzaga is a #1 seed with 7,000 students on campus, and they could be playing Texas A&M, and their 75,000 students.
This has got to be a top 10 awful take on here and your arrogance is off the charts.
How can you say that "The CURRENT 1A champs are, for the most part, the best of the least competitive playoff qualifiers." Can you walk me through your thought process that equates competitiveness to number of kids in a school?
Competitiveness is defined as, possession of a strong desire to be more successful than others or the quality of being as good as or better than others of a comparable nature.
Please explain how having a higher enrollment translates to wanting to win more than those with a lesser enrollment.
What you are suggesting makes zero sense. Take a team like Lena-Winslow, Byron, or Rochester and lets say that your mythical competitive calculating system puts them in the top 12.5%. Are you saying they should be expected to compete with teams like LWE, Batavia, MC, and Loyola?
From the other side of the spectrum take a team like Joliet West, Argo, or Rockford Auburn, they were all blown out in the first round in 7A or 8A so obviously their desire to win wasn't that high, and using your mythical system this would likely put them in the bottom 12.5% of competitiveness so they should be put in the lowest class to play teams like Peru St. Bede, Tuscola, and Dwight Coop because they were also blown out. We should just ignore the fact that the enrollment difference could be in excess of 2,000 students.
As HotBeer mentioned, any competitive ranking is going to be completely subjective and depending how it would be created would likely favor certain schools over others.
Why don't you just say what you really think, that you don't value smaller schools and don't recognize them as true champions. It's funny because you mention competitiveness as the be all end all but you tie that value to enrollment size.
I don't think this is arbitrary though. At the high school level, there are benefits to organizing a playoff by real attributes of the schools vs the output of a formula seeking to estimate "competitiveness".
The NCAA is a really bad comparison.
NCAA teams are not forming the best football/basketball team they can out of their student body - they are compiling their teams completely independently from their student body through recruiting. No NCAA coach has ever complained that another school has a larger student body - it's totally irrelevant.
Further, NCAA schools self-select into "classes" - D1 (FBS and FCS), D2, and D3, which each play by totally different rules.
Are you really trying to compare college basketball teams that can recruit the best players from across the country regardless of their enrollment to high schools in Illinois?
What version/combination of rankings do you propose they use?
The reason enrollment is used is because there is no objective competitive based ranking system that works. If you think you can come up with some magical system then it could be a very lucrative venture for you as every state in the country has their playoffs divided by enrollment. Some states include all teams, some separate public and private, and some have an open class but ultimately they're all divided by size.
For what it's worth, I believe the definition of "competitiveness" being referenced here is:
"the quality of being as good as or better than others of a comparable nature.", not a desire to win.
Agreed. I would say that "comparable nature" would include enrollment.
I understand the NCAA isn't a perfect example. My point is, they do have a system of ranking/selecting teams, based on results/metrics/etc.
We can go on MaxPreps right now, and see Illinois football teams ranked 1 thru 527, so it can be done. Now, whether or not a consensus could be reached on agreeing with the rankings, is another issue. I do know IHSA has no real reason to try and figure it out.
We can go on MaxPreps right now, and see Illinois football teams ranked 1 thru 527, so it can be done. Now, whether or not a consensus could be reached on agreeing with the rankings, is another issue. I do know IHSA has no real reason to try and figure it out.
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I can't trust rankings that are completely computer based and puts no consideration to seeing teams in person.
MaxPreps has Rochester ranked as #12 ahead of Maine South, Warren, and Normal.
Massey has St. Rita ranked as the #11 team in the state.
MaxPreps has Provi at #25 and Massey has them at #34.
Take the top ranked 32 on Massey and, for the sake of argument, lets that those are the top 32 in the state in terms of competitiveness. #1 is Loyola and #32 is IC and we all saw how that game went, IC was scared to play their starters. The #8 vs #25 game would have conveniently been JCA vs. Morris and that game was just as ugly as Loyola/IC. so even using these algorithms doesn't guarantee better games.
I understand that, and I'm firmly in the "there will always be blowouts" camp. The top teams will likely keep blowing teams out most games too. Regardless of the rankings system, Loyola is going to blowout the #32 team in the state. I'm a York fan, and York would be highly ranked in any system we could come up with. I hope I'm wrong, but I see a blowout Saturday.
Just to play devil's advocate, enrollment doesn't see teams play in person either...
Just to play devil's advocate, enrollment doesn't see teams play in person either...
In Massey's ratings York is #6 and would have been up against #27 Carmel, who is in 5A.
Yes, there will always be blowouts, I've never disputed that, but creating classes regardless of enrollment is going to increase those blowouts, not decrease them.
Just to be clear, "ranking" is not something that is done in the IHSA state playoffs.
Teams "qualify" for the playoffs based on their Win-Loss record (with opponents wins as a tiebreak).
They are '"classified" based on their enrollment
Then they are "seeded" again by W/L record (with the same tiebreaker).
"Ranking" teams is a fun activity, but it's important to acknowledge that it's not currently a part of the system. As all these examples in the thread demonstrate (maxpreps, massey, sun times, edgy tim, etc.) it is an incredibly subjective exercise.
Right, but enrollment isn't used to rank teams, just to classify them. And they aren't classified by how "good" they are, they are classified by the potential number of athletes they have.
Outside the box suggestion pulling from Florida. Florida has 8 classes but class 1A is for rural schools under an enrollment of 600. 2A is all non-rural schools under an enrollment of 376 . 3A is non-rural from 377-749, etc.
Could Illinois create a rural designation and have 2-3 classes for them?
Tiniest 32 schools in rural areas are 1A. 2A is more mid size rural schools (250-500 ish) and then 3A can be for Rochester, Sycamore, Chatham Glenwood, Morris, etc.
Then 4A is the smallest class for suburban schools and probably schools from decent sized city limits like Springfield, Rockford, Bloomington, Peoria, St. Louis/Edwardsville metro area.
School like Marian Central, Peru St. Bede, Bishop Mac, could probably play in the rural grouping unless you wanted to call that the "Public rural" lower three classes and then you can throw all the smallest private schools into 4A, but then 4A becomes an overwhelmingly private school class.
I suppose the Kankakee/Bradley area can be grouped as a decent sized metro area so Kankakee and BBCHS could play in the larger classes.
Lots of details to hash out, but a Florida model doesn't seem crazy. Long story short, it removes schools like Morris and Sycamore from the private schools (perhaps even Antioch if we designate them as rural) but leaves schools like Lemont and Kankakee to play with the private schools in an enrollment based system.
Could Illinois create a rural designation and have 2-3 classes for them?
Tiniest 32 schools in rural areas are 1A. 2A is more mid size rural schools (250-500 ish) and then 3A can be for Rochester, Sycamore, Chatham Glenwood, Morris, etc.
Then 4A is the smallest class for suburban schools and probably schools from decent sized city limits like Springfield, Rockford, Bloomington, Peoria, St. Louis/Edwardsville metro area.
School like Marian Central, Peru St. Bede, Bishop Mac, could probably play in the rural grouping unless you wanted to call that the "Public rural" lower three classes and then you can throw all the smallest private schools into 4A, but then 4A becomes an overwhelmingly private school class.
I suppose the Kankakee/Bradley area can be grouped as a decent sized metro area so Kankakee and BBCHS could play in the larger classes.
Lots of details to hash out, but a Florida model doesn't seem crazy. Long story short, it removes schools like Morris and Sycamore from the private schools (perhaps even Antioch if we designate them as rural) but leaves schools like Lemont and Kankakee to play with the private schools in an enrollment based system.
Interesting idea, but I don't see it working in Illinois with too much of the population concentrated around Chicago with ~3 million people. The population in Florida is more evenly distributed with Jacksonville being their largest city, but still has less than 1 million people.
Yea I know there are issues. I am curious if we took the roughly 500 football playing schools in Illinois and designated them, how many would we define as rural and how many as non-rural. If there are close to 200 rural schools and close to 300 non-rural schools, I think it is fine to have 3 rural classes and 5 non-rural classes.
The real issue would be setting the definition of which schools get which designation and then balancing them numerically.
Or you can get real creative and have rural/CPS schools combined together into 3 classes and everyone else in the other 5 classes. Would love to see Morgan Park vs Morris or Kenwood vs. Chatham Glenwood and Simeon vs Rochester games for state titles.
I think that becomes very subjective, mainly in determining what is considered rural vs. metro and where the cutoff would be for the "Chicagoland" area, as that would need to all be considered metro and depending on who you ask can stretch as far southwest as to include Will and Grundy counties.
20 miles outside of Chicago is still very much metro, but 20 miles outside Rockford is Pecatonica, which is a 3A school that Byron just beat.
On the surface it doesn't seem like a terrible system, but not one that would work in Illinois due to it's largest city being so much larger than any other. Florida has 21 million people but still doesn't have a city with over 1 million people so the population is more evenly distributed and even though a school in Florida may be deemed rural, that's a completely different definition than rural in Illinois.
For the record, qualifying for the playoffs is no different in that proposal than how it currently works today. Like the current model, all qualifiers are determined and then sorted into playoff classes. The power points system changes the method for sorting into classes.
No doubt it's subjective. I am in favor of the current system over any changes. Just pointing out one possibility that seems to work elsewhere.
I think Chicagoland would be subjective for sure. Outside of Chicago though you could determine something like "any public school in the city limits of any municipality over 75,000 people will be designated in the metro (non-rural) division. This would lump Bloomington and Champaign with Peoria, Springfield, and Rockford. So that could be objective. But certainly finding a way to keep ESL and Edwardsville and Normal and Bradley Bourbonnais and Kanakakee with the metro schools would require some creative subjectivity.
Once again, the system has warts. All the other new IHSA proposals likely have more warts. Districts and the averaging enrollment of neighboring public schools are terrible ideas. Separating public/private would make football in Illinois less appealing overall. This is one way to try to appease many competing constituencies. I guess the better way to think of this is "if we can't all be together, might we be better off separating rural schools from everyone else" or I even really like the rural combined with CPS idea that I just talked into existence.
I know it is not going to get any traction and I am not advocating for it. It has issues. I think status quo is best. But I think pursuing this goofy idea would at least have more merit than a public/private divide or some of the other poor ideas proposed by IHSA members recently.
What is the point of this? Isn't one of the great things about state playoffs that team like Lena-Winslow roll into Chicago to play at Altgeld Park or Quincy plays west Chicago etc. etc.
This seems like complication for the sake of complication. Splitting rural and urban schools solves no problem.
These types of games already happen all the time in the playoffs. Phillips played Dunlap a few years ago to win state. MP just lost to Sycamore two weeks ago.
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- teams earn points for wins/losses, the amount earned is based on the “pre season class” an opponent is slotted into in the beginning of the year
- higher the class an opponent is in, the more points earned win or loss; playoffs also worth more than regular season
- 256 teams make the playoffs and are stack ranked into their “playoff class” ie top 32 teams by power points go to 8A, so on and so forth
- at the end of the season, the total power points earned by a team across regular season and playoffs are used, alongside power point results from prior two seasons, to place a team in a “pre season class” prior to the start of the next year
My understanding was the top 256 teams in term of "points" were the qualifiers.
Got it, apologies for misquoting! Here was the description I saw:
- teams earn points for wins/losses, the amount earned is based on the “pre season class” an opponent is slotted into in the beginning of the year
- higher the class an opponent is in, the more points earned win or loss; playoffs also worth more than regular season
- 256 teams make the playoffs and are stack ranked into their “playoff class” ie top 32 teams by power points go to 8A, so on and so forth
- at the end of the season, the total power points earned by a team across regular season and playoffs are used, alongside power point results from prior two seasons, to place a team in a “pre season class” prior to the start of the next year
My understanding was the top 256 teams in term of "points" were the qualifiers.
Well that's what I get for lazy summations. From the original ted talk....
I agree. Nothing better than going to see a semifinal game at LaSalle-Peru or Normal or Jacksonville.
But the difference here would be appeasing the "IC doesn't belong playing 4A schools, Montini shouldn't be in 3A" type arguments.
Not my argument. I But if change is coming regardless because of this constant hand wringing over some advantage, this is just one consideration that is not good. Just better than districts. Or the rolling average enrollment proposal. Or outright private school separation.
And I am sure Morgan Park and Sycamore would prefer that their game be for a championship. As it was, they played a quarterfinal game for the right to be handled relatively handily by a Wheaton St. Francis team that now must play two more private schools in an effort to win a state title. Again, not my argument. Just trying to come up with ways to appease those who will likely never be appeased. Which is what this entire exercise with any of these proposals are.
I am sorry you feel that way. You and I go way back here and elsewhere, and I have always had the utmost respect for you as a HS football fan and a poster. I truly believe your heart is in the right place, and I am disappointed that you obviously feel that mine is not.
I realize that my posts in this thread and similar ones are blunt. That's intentional as I feel that too many people are dancing around this topic trying to be tactful, and I believe it isn't helpful.
Basically, it all boils down to everything is relative.
Within 1A in a given year, the champ and runners up and semifinalists are among the most competitive teams within that class. The least competitive would be those that lost first round games, regardless of the fact that they may have risen to the occasion, played their hearts out, and lost 48-0.
Within all 256 playoff qualifiers, the losers of first round 8A games would likely trounce the losers of first round 1A games. So, within all qualifiers, the least competitive 1A teams are among the least competitive of all 256 qualifiers. Same holds true with the champs and deep runners. The 8A champs would destroy the 1A champs. 8A semifinalists would soundly defeat 1A semifinalists.
Is it that much of a leap, therefore, to conclude that the 1A champs are, for the most part, the best of the bottom most tier of all 256 qualifiers? Sure, bottom most tier is kinder and gentler than least competitive, but I've already covered my preference for blunt words in this conversation.
Blunt words? Yes. Arrogant words? Not in my view.
Because, regardless of the definition of the word you found that suited your spin, competitiveness isn't just about desire. At least it's not in my book. It's also about results.
Look, there are 256 qualifiers. It's a fixed number. They can't all be equally competitive. I used to have this same argument back in the day when I would tell posters that their teams had to work harder. They would get all huffy and say things like, "Nobody works harder than our team." Teams don't all work equally as hard and teams aren't all equally competitive and successful. Like it or not, in any human endeavor in which people are competing for something, there is an array of competitiveness level, and each person, or team in this case, occupies a unique position on that array. BECAUSE of that reality, we need to classify qualifiers accordingly otherwise the top seed of all 256 would face the bottom seed of all 256. You like classifying by enrollment. I don't. Regardless of what system is used to classify, the net result, as explained in my blunt words above, is that the schools in 8A are more competitive than the 1A schools. They would knock the snot out of 1A schools. There is no shame in that reality.
It wouldn't. And it isn't mythical.
Of course not. However, if Le-Win or Rochester kept getting moved up and kept winning, well then why not keep moving them up until such time as they stop winning? They probably wouldn't get to the point where they were competing with the schools you mentioned, but maybe Le-Win is better placed competitively in 2A or 3A and Rochester in 5A or 6A.
Heck, it was only a few years ago that Rochester won 5A, beating up on St. Rita in the title game. This year, they are beating up on the likes of Coal City and Lincoln so far in 4A. I remember when WWS won 8A one year. The next year, they happened to be the first or second largest 7A school and they wound up winning 7A. That's just plain wrong.
They would not be put down in 1A or 2A. And the system isn't mythical. I like the system @stonedlizard has put together.
No, we shouldn't. I've always said that the system should be enrollment influenced and not enrollment driven. However, I think it would be fascinating to watch a school like Le-Win suit up against a school like Taft.
HotBeer was wrong about that and I think he admitted as such. Have you actually studied @stonedlizard's system? It's not the least bit subjective.
This is what i find most distressing in your post. I'm not even going to bother defending myself.
You keep using the word competitive and I don't think that's the word you should be using. You're directly relating competitiveness to size of school. How can you tie competitiveness to size? 1A isn't the bottom tier they're just physically the smallest.
It's not suited to my spin, the definition comes from the Oxford dictionary. You're the one using the word incorrectly.
MaxPrep algorithm has Rochester ranked as the #12 team in the entire state. Massey has IC at #32. Both of those would be the top 12.5%.
Massey ratings has Tinley Park (5A playoffs) ranked #251 and Addison Trail (7A playoffs) ranked #245. Those would be in the bottom 12.5% of a competitive based system and put them in 1A, the bottom class of competitiveness.
stonedlizard's system is interesting but it's not being used so at this point it is mythical. It is a good system but it is based on enrollment as well. A team gets more "power points" by playing larger teams and can be manipulated by teams scheduling larger or smaller teams based on what class they desire to be in.
Every state in the country classifies by enrollment. I just looked and even in the great state of Texas in their largest class there were several blowouts in the first round of the playoffs. No matter what you do it's never going to change in high school football in Illinois or anywhere else. People like you look to other levels of football or other sports for comparison and you just can't do that. Hell, even the college football playoff has at least one blowout every year and there's only a total of 3 games being played and the teams are decided by a dedicated committee.
