You ar emaking some good points. But the bottom line is ... outside of 3/4 8A teams over the last several years .... Warren is a top 8A program whether folks like it or not. Not sure how many 8A teams are signing up to play an unbattled tested Warren. Not sure who your team is but good luck in the playoffs.
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I don’t get the obsession for Naz either. They are 4-5. People need to stop focusing on the past. They literally got manhandled at home in a game that in normal years would have knocked them out of the postseason.
"They literally got manhandled at home in a game that in normal years would have knocked them out of the postseason."
Re: Nazareth, I suspect you are correct in every aspect except one.
"normal years."
This totally feels like the NEW normal year. Does anyone think that the number of high schools playing IHSA 11-man football next fall is going to increase from this year's total?
And what we've learned, is that with 256 qualifiers, and I believe just slightly under 500 schools playing this season, that it's basically a mathematical probability that some 4-5 teams are going to make the postseason.
What that actually means is that we now officially do not have an even playing field.
To wit: It is pretty much a mathematical near-impossibility for some 4-5 teams to accumulate enough "playoff points" (opponents wins) to get into the playoffs with a losing record.
Here's a list of teams from this season:
Genoa-Kingston (Big Northern Conference)
Hamilton County (Black Diamond Conference)
Burlington Central (Fox Valley)
Elmwood-Brimfield (Lincoln Prairie)
Macomb (Lincoln Prairie)
Rockford East (NIC-10)
New Berlin (Sangamo)
Bartlett (Upstate 8)
Clifton Central (Vermillion Valley)
Oakwood (Vermillion Valley)
These 10 schools have three things in common:
1) They all finished the season 4-5
2) They all play in 10-team closed conferences (no non-conference games for any league member)
3) They all ended the season with 41 playoff points, nowhere near enough to make the playoffs.
With 4-5 records becoming the norm for making the playoffs, teams that play in a 10-school closed conference have no choice but to finish their 4-5 playoff points and turn in their equipment the day after Week 9's game. The way to solve that problem is by spliting 10-team conferences into two five-team divisions. You. play four division games, three games vs. teams from the other division, and Weeks 1 and 2 you play whoever you want or whoever you can beat, as the case may be.
It's a way for teams with 4-5 records to accumulate enough playoff points to make the playoffs.
Currently, with a 10-team league and no non-conference games simply cannot even hope to make the postseason.
On another topic, the Chicago Public League could allow its Blue Division teams with 5 or more wins to be part of the playoffs. This year, that would have added 10 teams to the field and eliminated all the 4-5s and a few 5-4s, including probably several from the CPL Blue itself.
The line of people who think that adding Blue Division teams to the playoff field instead of the 4-5s who got in this year will improve the playoffs does not exist.