So is the 8A title game just going to be a LW East vs Loyola part 3? Seems these 2 teams are so far above the rest of 8a that no one can beat either of them. Add in the Brook QB transfer to East and Loyola returning a ton can any other teams even have a shot?
2024 8A title game part 3?
- Thread starter Illgold22
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Just hoping for 5 wins in Park Ridge!
Massey has MS winning 8/9. You could use the sandbags, though, if Park Ridge has a hurricane.
I fully expect a LWE/LA repeat this year. That could change in 2025 depending on LWE, MC. LA brackets.
All.... In the fwiw and who cares as always category. If all three were in 8A in 2024 and happened to mix it up. And the computer (Massey) says! Ratsy
Mt. Carmel 27 Loyola 24 (54%)
Mt. Carmel 29 LWE 17 (72%)
Loyola 27 LWE 16 (70%)
Mt. Carmel 27 Loyola 24 (54%)
Mt. Carmel 29 LWE 17 (72%)
Loyola 27 LWE 16 (70%)
Yes, but LA already does that (I believe), maybe they could take turns. Seriously.
All.... Google Massey Ratings. They do all sorts of sports including projections and scores. Ratsy
All....The Ihsa rule is when you petition to play it is for two years. So I would think that would mean it would have to be done at the start of the new two year enrollment period. This is the second year for 2023 and 2024. So 2025 would be the earliest. If MC is as good as everyone believes and makes this years final the success factor kicks in anyway. The Caravan would then be in 8A for the next two years. Ratsy
Why not? Did you see Maine South's schedule? LWE is stacking up to be their only loss. Of course, MS has to capitalize on their good fortune.
I think you know about MS than Corey for sure!! ;-) High potential, deeply-talented MS team heading into this season, while across a very tough schedule, absolutely 8/9 wins is within reach based just off their OFF stack, just not a laydown schedule either.
No, not a laydown schedule. They have to show up. But this is what it looks like, Corey. I'm no MS booster, but I see eight wins here. Not easy wins but probable wins.
8/29 LWE
9/6 Warren
9/13 Hersey
9/20 Barrington
9/27 New Trier
10/4 Glenbrook North
10/10 Glenbrook South
10/18 Deerfield
10/25 Evanston
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The Massey Ratings are computer ratings developed to rate and rank sports teams in many different sports at many different levels. Computer ratings for Illinois high school football teams are among the many different ratings provided. The Massey Ratings were developed by Kenneth Massey, a mathematics professor at Carson-Newman University in Tennessee.
On the Massey website, under the section for frequently asked questions, Kenneth Massey provides an answer to the following question: How do you generate preseason ratings? His answer will not surprise most contributors to this message board, but still may be worth providing. Here it is:
The Massey preseason ratings compensate for the lack of data early in a season. They give the computer a realistic starting point from which to evaluate teams that have played zero or few games. This limits dramatic changes that could be caused by isolated results not buffered by the context of other games.
The effect of the preseason ratings gradually diminishes each week. When every team has played a sufficient number of games to be accurately evaluated based on the current year alone, the preseason bias will be phased out entirely.
Preseason ratings are based on an extrapolation of recent years' results, tuned to fit historical trends and regression to the mean. A team's future performance is expected to be consistent with the strength of the program, but sometimes there may be temporary spikes.
Other potentially significant indicators, such as returning starters and coaching changes, are ignored. Therefore, preseason ratings should not be taken too seriously.
As you can see, by his own admission Professor Massey does not think his preseason ratings should be taken too seriously. They are simply a reflection of the recent historical success each program has experienced. It has been my experience, though, that by the second half of a season his ratings are about as accurate as you will find available. They are more accurate than the CalPreps Ratings (which are the same ratings used by MaxPreps) and they are more accurate than the ratings found at highschool.si.com/illinois/ (if those ratings still exist). The Massey Ratings (I'm talking about his Power Ratings) are also more accurate than the Associated Press Polls. The only thing that comes close to the Massey Power Ratings in accuracy are Edgy Tim's rankings found on this message board. Although they are subjective in nature and are not a poll (contrary to his labeling), they are quite good.
I think I didn’t make my post clear. I was trying to say MS will win more than 8-9 games. I have total respect for Maine South. I apologize for not being clearer.
When people refer to an over/under on the number of games that will be won (as a preseason prediction), they are usually referring to the regular season. In that context it is impossible for Maine South to win more than nine games. In that regard your most recent post does not make sense when you say, "I was trying to say MS will win more than 8-9 games." I will assume you are including playoff wins when you made your statement, but that is not what most people are thinking when discussing an over/under prediction.
No need. Your comments are always appreciated.
To be fair,
I was trying to say that I didn’t believe the Massey preseason ranking. You guys are in preseason form. Lol
I better cross my T’s & Dot my I’s or I might get hung from the visit rafters! Hahahaha
Understanding that the Massey preseason rankings are to be taken with a grain of salt, I calculated the average ranking of each team's opponents to see who has the toughest (on paper) schedules. Here is the top 10:
Rank Team Avg Opponent Rank
1 Wilmette (Loyola Academy) 28
2 New Lenox (Providence Catholic) 33
3 Elmhurst (IC Catholic) 37
4 Chicago (Brother Rice) 37
5 Naperville (North) 41
6 Lockport (Twp.) 43
7 LaGrange Park (Nazareth Academy) 44
8 Chicago (Marist) 46
9 Oak Park (Fenwick) 47
10 St. Charles (East) 52
10 Wheaton (North) 52
Rank Team Avg Opponent Rank
1 Wilmette (Loyola Academy) 28
2 New Lenox (Providence Catholic) 33
3 Elmhurst (IC Catholic) 37
4 Chicago (Brother Rice) 37
5 Naperville (North) 41
6 Lockport (Twp.) 43
7 LaGrange Park (Nazareth Academy) 44
8 Chicago (Marist) 46
9 Oak Park (Fenwick) 47
10 St. Charles (East) 52
10 Wheaton (North) 52
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Rita petitioned up to 7A last year, so this year she will be in 7A. I wonder what the coaching staff will do for next year? Petition for 7A again? Or fall down to 6A?
Pick your poison - 6A ESL and 7A MC. Yikes. Still should be good to see Rice, Rita and MC all in 7A - you know the IHSA is going to keep them all in same bracket
If MC wins 7a again, which seems pretty likely, they’ll SF into 8a next year.
To be honest, if 6A went to 1 - 32 seeding, it'd be interesting to see potential Rita-ESL matchups for a few years. Love the unpredictability of the 1 - 32 seeding.
A lot will depend on what they gained from the transfer portal. There was a thread on this but it may have been too early.
"Rice, Ritaand MC all in 7A - you know the IHSA is going to keep them all in same bracket."
That statement has zero basis in fact.
The 7A bracket is seeded 1-32 based on total victories and then wins by opponents to separate teams that have the same number of wins.
Surely, you know that and this is a silly, inaccurate shot at the IHSA.
The IHSA has zero manipulation with the 7A and 8A brackets as they are seeded 1-32. In the smaller classes, yes, the IHSA can manipulate how they separate the 16 north teams from the 16 south teams. But that is impossible in Class 7A and 8A.
What you are describing here is exactly what is going to be wrong with the 2024 season.
It's going to suck a lot of life out of this forum. And if you add Mt. Carmel as being odds-on to win 7A, then really the topics for discussion are just not going to be available.
I mean, the poster who jokingly said that Maine South was hopefully going to win five games ... really, it kind of isn't going to matter if Maine South goes 9-0 or 8-1 or 7-2 or 6-3. On June 4, nobody believes that the Hawks can be playing for the state title.
The thing sadly that probably we all need to hope for is that Mt. Carmel KO's Loyola during the regular season, and that loss punts Loyola out. of the 1-2 seed position and into a 4-5 so that they would have to play L-W East in the semifinals and a different team would get a chance to play at ISU on Thanksgiving weekend.
Other than that, any comments supporting any 8A team as a viable challenger for Loyola or L-W East isn't going to be met with ridicule or sarcasm.
It's going to be ignored.
You may be right, but the future is not always as predictable as some people think. Cary-Grove was not supposed to beat East St. Louis last year nor in 2021. Do you remember? The Flyers were unstoppable. Camp Point Central wasn't even supposed to beat Belleville Althoff last year let alone take down three-time defending champion Lena-Winslow. A three-loss Maine South team defeated Loyola in the 2016 8A championship game. Then, two years later a three-loss Loyola team defeated an absolutely unbeatable Lincoln-Way East team in the semifinals. It may be a little early to hand the 8A championship trophy to Loyola or Lincoln-Way East, and the 7A trophy to Mt. Carmel. Nobody saw Lockport coming in 2021... until they took down Loyola.
This in ascending order, right? If this says MC didn't make the list because it has one of the weakest schedules, then I question your methodology.
You make a valid point. The average rank of Mt. Carmel's nine opponents is 18th (rounded to the nearest whole number). That would mean they have the most difficult schedule of the teams listed above. They should have been on the list.
I did not check the math related to the other listed teams. It would be a very time-consuming task. I give some credit to "wickerpark wildcat" for making the attempt.
Note: Mt. Carmel's opening opponent is an out-of-state team. For my calculation, I used Hun's preseason Massey ranking within the state of New Jersey, which is 16th.
Thanks for the error check. I only downloaded Illinois rankings, so when I had an opponent out of state, I had labeled their ranking as 999 because leaving it blank can cause issues in my database. Filtering those out, here is updated SOS rankings:
| Rank | Team | Avg Opponent Rank |
1 | Chicago (Mt. Carmel) | 18 |
2 | Chicago (St. Ignatius) | 25 |
3 | Wilmette (Loyola Academy) | 28 |
4 | New Lenox (Providence Catholic) | 33 |
5 | Joliet (Catholic Academy) | 37 |
6 | Elmhurst (IC Catholic) | 37 |
7 | Chicago (Brother Rice) | 37 |
8 | Naperville (North) | 41 |
9 | Lockport (Twp.) | 43 |
10 | LaGrange Park (Nazareth Academy) | 44 |
11 | Chicago (Marist) | 46 |
12 | Oak Park (Fenwick) | 47 |
13 | Wheaton (St. Francis) | 49 |
14 | St. Charles (East) | 52 |
14 | Wheaton (North) | 52 |
16 | Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East) | 53 |
17 | Chicago (St. Rita) | 54 |
18 | Flossmoor (Homewood-F.) | 55 |
19 | Niles (Notre Dame) | 56 |
20 | St. Charles (North) | 56 |
21 | Chicago (DePaul) | 57 |
22 | Glenview (Glenbrook South) | 59 |
23 | Park Ridge (Maine South) | 59 |
24 | Carpentersville (Dundee-Crown) | 62 |
25 | McHenry | 63 |
Note- I am not ranking the teams, I am ranking the strength of their opponents, based on Massey's rankings. So, Mt. Carmel's average opponent is ranked 18th, etc.
For all, related to above... I've updated my dashboard that shows every team's schedule (that is available) to include the Massey rankings. The 1st tab allows you to dive into a specific team's schedule. 2nd tab allows you to look at multiple teams, grouped by Class or Conference, and sorted by Massey Rank. This should be viewed on a larger screen, in full screen mode... will look terrible on a phone:
Naperville North is the biggest standout there. Shows how much the DVC-SWSC merger has increased competition. If NC wasn't put down to the second tier I would expect them to rank similarly. It'll be a gauntlet of a season for North.
