What did we learn this season!?!?!?!

[LakeCtyNewt]

That was quick wasn’t it? 14 weeks and now…..nothin.

1 - That congrats are in order for the Crusaders, Knights, Broncos, Rams, Roadrunners, Flyers, Caravan and Ramblers for being best in class.
2 - That equal congrats are in order for the Panthers, Trojans, Sages, Braves, Hillmen, Vikings, Bulldogs and Dukes - they’re pretty good too.
3 - That the need for 1-32 seeding is greater than ever.
4 - That the divide between the haves and have nots in IHSA football is getting wider and this isn’t a public vs private comment.
5 - That all gas and no brakes Is still the top dog until someone in or out of our state takes them down.
6 - LW East is still good but Loyola is the equivalent to Ohio States Michigan.
7 - That it will never get old watching former Illinois stars playing at the next level and beyond.
8 - That conference realignments this year made for some intriguing in season matchups.
9 - That reading up on what the York coach went through in his cancer battle then leading his team to a state final is something I’m happy to have learned. Well done.
10 - That we only have 262 days until August 29 opening night.

Be well everyone that’s a wrap.

 

[McCaravan]

There were many great Public/Private match up's in this years playoffs but due to the seeding they happened too early on. LA/LWE, MC/Normal, Fenwick/DGN, DePaul/Coal City, and you can't get much closer then Byron/Montini. All great games decided by 1 score that went down to the wire. Strength of Schedule needs to be factored in as Whitney Young never should have been the #1 seed in 7A.....maybe #1 seed in basketball, definitely in the Academic Decathlon, not Football.

 

[Wassup13]

There were many great Public/Private match up's in this years playoffs but due to the seeding they happened too early on. LA/LWE, MC/Normal, Fenwick/DGN, DePaul/Coal City, and you can't get much closer then Byron/Montini. All great games decided by 1 score that went down to the wire. Strength of Schedule needs to be factored in as Whitney Young never should have been the #1 seed in 7A.....maybe #1 seed in basketball, definitely in the Academic Decathlon, not Football.

THIS!!!

There were many great Public/Private match up's in this years playoffs but DUE TO THE SEEDING they happened too early on. Loyola Academy/Lincoln Way East, Mt Carmel/Normal, Fenwick/Downers Grove North, DePaul/Coal City, and you can't get much closer then Byron/Montini. All great games decided by 1 score that went down to the wire.

 

[crazylegs777]

Chicago Christian run this year was just like the 1986 Tinley Park run!!! A team on life support given their last rights & the plug getting ready to come out to 13-1 state champs!!!!!

 

[cornerrat]

All.... That doing the right thing and set an example is not for everyone. The "myth" continues in the mind of some but the truth has had its way with one in particular. Ratsy

 

[Dave Brody]

THIS!!!

There were many great Public/Private match up's in this years playoffs but DUE TO THE SEEDING they happened too early on. Loyola Academy/Lincoln Way East, Mt Carmel/Normal, Fenwick/Downers Grove North, DePaul/Coal City, and you can't get much closer then Byron/Montini. All great games decided by 1 score that went down to the wire.

Morgan Park as a #1 seed was a joke.

 

[eagles2k3]

That Loyola doesn’t just have great athletes, they really do have great coaches AND They have a great culture. My kiD is getting recruited by Loyola for a different sport, and I love the coaches and the other parents connected with it but he won’t do it. Wants to play with the kids he’s grow up with since he was 5. I feel this won’t end well in 4 years unfortunately. And we go to a very good public school.

 

[gobears25]

Morgan Park as a #1 seed was a joke.

Edgy picked them to win the South bracket of 5a and play Naz in the championship, implies that he thought they were deserving of the #1 seed.

 

[crazylegs777]

There were many great Public/Private match up's in this years playoffs but due to the seeding they happened too early on. LA/LWE, MC/Normal, Fenwick/DGN, DePaul/Coal City, and you can't get much closer then Byron/Montini. All great games decided by 1 score that went down to the wire. Strength of Schedule needs to be factored in as Whitney Young never should have been the #1 seed in 7A.....maybe #1 seed in basketball, definitely in the Academic Decathlon, not

Edgy picked them to win the South bracket of 5a and play Naz in the championship, implies that he thought they were deserving of the #1 seed.

Had Morgan Park been the CPS rep in the Prep Bowl they would have got curb stomped by a St Ignatius team that finished 3-6 in the regular season

 

[McCaravan]

Had Morgan Park been the CPS rep in the Prep Bowl they would have got curb stomped by a St Ignatius team that finished 3-6 in the regular season

You aren't wrong to think that and it very likely would have gone that way but it wouldn't be a curb stomping. Iggy offense would have given Mo Po fits. They were a much better team then the 3-6 record showed, they just had a rough time in the Blue Division.
I thought MP would handle Morris too. I know turnovers played a huge part in that but I think MP/SI would have been a competitive game

 

[SEHSSTORM1]

That Loyola doesn’t just have great athletes, they really do have great coaches AND They have a great culture. My kiD is getting recruited by Loyola for a different sport, and I love the coaches and the other parents connected with it but he won’t do it. Wants to play with the kids he’s grow up with since he was 5. I feel this won’t end well in 4 years unfortunately. And we go to a very good public school.

Time to be a Dad and not his friend.

 

[33corndog33]

We also learned that complaining about seeding is comical and apparently still a thing. Insert old man yells at cloud meme here. The IHSA will never go to a subjective system for seeding. This will open the door for people to blame the system for showing favoritism when someone's team gets a seed they disagree with. That will only lead to more obnoxious vitriol than we already have.

Now the real question is, can there be a better objective system? That answer is probably yes, so whatever a new system would be, it must be based on facts and evidence, not opinions. This leaves us with wins and losses, opponents wins, points allowed can be thrown in as well.

 

[brucealmighy]

We also learned that complaining about seeding is comical and apparently still a thing. Insert old man yells at cloud meme here. The IHSA will never go to a subjective system for seeding. This will open the door for people to blame the system for showing favoritism when someone's team gets a seed they disagree with. That will only lead to more obnoxious vitriol than we already have.

Now the real question is, can there be a better objective system? That answer is probably yes, so whatever a new system would be, it must be based on facts and evidence, not opinions. This leaves us with wins and losses, opponents wins, points allowed can be thrown in as well.

But they seed in every other team sport.

 

[colin2229]

Caleb Tucker (Aka - Bonecrusher) from Mt Carmel will be the highest rated player ever from the state of Illinois.

 

[brucealmighy]

Caleb Tucker (Aka - Bonecrusher) from Mt Carmel will be the highest rated player ever from the state of Illinois.

Will he stay in Illinois? The running back from Decatur that moved to Texas is going to be very highly rated.

 

[colin2229]

Will he stay in Illinois? The running back from Decatur that moved to Texas is going to be very highly rated.

Yes.

 

[MC63]

Will he stay in Illinois? The running back from Decatur that moved to Texas is going to be very highly rated.

I believe so. Cach Lynch frequently states that "Boys come to Mt Carmel to win state championships," Caleb is already on his way.

 

[crazylegs777]

But they seed in every other team sport.

There has got to be a better way(Massey?) to seed them. Look again at #1 Whitney Young. St Ignatius 3-6 regular season 5-6 coming in decapitated them in the Prep Bowl. I’d go as far to say The Pack would have beat BBCHS by 2 tds or more & many other playoff teams

 

[LHSTigers94]

Caleb Tucker (Aka - Bonecrusher) from Mt Carmel will be the highest rated player ever from the state of Illinois.

Terry Beckner was the overall #2 recruit in the country

 

[olderbytheminute]

But they seed in every other team sport.

In every other team sport coaches seed teams in their sectional not the entire state. Coaches can be familiar with the level of teams in their area buy can’t be d or Ted to be knowledgeable about every team in the state in their class. Seeding 32 teams in 5a for example from all over the state is hardly comparable to seeding an 18-team sectional in which all teams are near each other and coaches are familiar with the skill level in any given year of other nearby programs.
But of course you know that. Please be better.

 

[brucealmighy]

In every other team sport coaches seed teams in their sectional not the entire state. Coaches can be familiar with the level of teams in their area buy can’t be d or Ted to be knowledgeable about every team in the state in their class. Seeding 32 teams in 5a for example from all over the state is hardly comparable to seeding an 18-team sectional in which all teams are near each other and coaches are familiar with the skill level in any given year of other nearby programs.
But of course you know that. Please be better.

Fair point. 32 teams instead of 18 is a big difference. I do bet that they could do a better job than the current system. 9-0 and 8-1 teams would not be as over seeded and some 6-3/7-2 would not be under seeded. MC and LA compared to Whitney Young, Glenbard East and a few others wouldn’t happen.

 

[PowerI66]

Terry Beckner was the overall #2 recruit in the country

I was going to ask who the top ever was. I'm assuming Terry was it

 

[crusader_of_90]

Wasn't LB3 #2 as well, behind Travis Henry?

 

[olderbytheminute]

Fair point. 32 teams instead of 18 is a big difference. I do bet that they could do a better job than the current system. 9-0 and 8-1 teams would not be as over seeded and some 6-3/7-2 would not be under seeded. MC and LA compared to Whitney Young, Glenbard East and a few others wouldn’t happen.

Yeah, that's 32 teams across the entire state rather than 18 teams in one section of the state.
Yes, I agree that a better system would help avoid what we saw at ISU, with 7 of the 8 games being 20-plus point spreads.
I am surprised that there isn't movement in the IHSA to put together a state-wide committee that would pay attention to statewide football all season and on Saturday/Sunday would put together the top 4 seeds in each class regardless of won-loss record. Those four would be placed in the. bracket with 1-4 in one half and 2-3 in the other. The other 28 teams in the class could then be ranked based on the current system.
That would keep a Chicago Public League team with a 9-0 record from being a No. 1 seed and would keep Loyola from being a 12 seed and Mt. Carmel a 19 seed, and Montini a 9 seed, etc.
The problem is how to put together a committee that's committed to becoming educated on an entire state of football for 9 weeks in the fall.
The NCAA does it with the college playoff system and ranks teams. But at the college level, they can watch tapes of the top teams in action each week and then rank them on Tuesday evening on TV.
In Illinois prep football, how do you do that? You don't know who is in what class until late Saturday afternoon after Week 9 of the season.
I mean, a blind person could rank Mt. Carmel as No. 1 in the 7A class, but what if after nine weeks, it turned out they wound up in 8A with Lincoln-Way East and Loyola (yes, that's coming next year, I know). A committee can't correctly rank the top four teams until they know what class all 256 teams are in.
It's a tough situation. There's the Saturday night pairings show that would not happen on Saturday night. Are you going to pay committee members to do all the work necessary to correctly rank the top four teams in each of 8 classes? There are a ton of issues, and just using the current system of seeding teams isn't going to solve a thing by just seeding 1-32. We had seeds 12 and 14 playing for the 8A title on Saturday in a 21-point game, and we had seeds 4 and 19 playing for the 7A title in a another 21-point game.
I think one area about Illinois prep football that's really changed in recent years is that the elite-level programs are now actively seeking out what could be called "potential loss" games during the nonconference portion of the schedule rather than facing the nearest school not in the same league.
As a result, we're getting top programs — top-4 seed calibre programs — landing in the middle of the seeding pack due to nonconference losses against really good competition. I mean, Loyola played East St. Louis and one of the teams had to lose.
Chicago Kenwood opened its season with St. Francis of Wheaton and Nazareth Academy.
Maine South opened with Lincoln-Way East and Warren.
A lof of these top-level programs have correctly determined that playing really good teams and learning while losing is way better than going 9-0 and being semi-untested heading into the playoffs. These top teams know they can get to 5 wins, and obviously believe that 5 wins and experience against powerhouse teams is better than 7-8-9 wins against middlin' competition.

 

[colin2229]

Terry Beckner was the overall #2 recruit in the country

Bonecrusher can be #1.

 

[mslwestfan]

That Loyola doesn’t just have great athletes, they really do have great coaches AND They have a great culture. My kiD is getting recruited by Loyola for a different sport, and I love the coaches and the other parents connected with it but he won’t do it. Wants to play with the kids he’s grow up with since he was 5. I feel this won’t end well in 4 years unfortunately. And we go to a very good public school.

Recruited?

 

[LHSTigers94]

Wasn't LB3 #2 as well, behind Travis Henry?

#3

 

[MC63]

That Loyola doesn’t just have great athletes, they really do have great coaches AND They have a great culture. My kiD is getting recruited by Loyola for a different sport, and I love the coaches and the other parents connected with it but he won’t do it. Wants to play with the kids he’s grow up with since he was 5. I feel this won’t end well in 4 years unfortunately. And we go to a very good public school.

Make him a deal ... go to LA for a year ... if you don't like it, you can transfer, bt give it a solid year.

 

[LHSTigers94]

I learned that #1 and #12 for Geneva were pretty good and hats off to them for a great season.

It was also confirmed that LA was pretty damn good which is what I thought after ESL beat them week 1. When top teams play each other early, you learn a lot about your team and what needs to be fixed for playoffs. Once those adjustments were made, everything changes.

I knew ESL offense would be very good and more balanced that I can remember which is a nightmare for defenses.

I also watched a lot of great players over the weekend and I wish more would talk about those performances versus focusing on trying to balance something that can’t be balanced. At the end of the day, they are all teenagers playing a game that they love. No one is garaunteed a championship so enjoy your season. Adults are more butt hurt than the actual players.

 

[wickerpark wildcat]

Fair point. 32 teams instead of 18 is a big difference. I do bet that they could do a better job than the current system. 9-0 and 8-1 teams would not be as over seeded and some 6-3/7-2 would not be under seeded. MC and LA compared to Whitney Young, Glenbard East and a few others wouldn’t happen.

They could just follow basketball. Everyone is in the playoffs, Regionals and Sectionals that are seeded locally 🤷‍♂️

 

[Wassup13]

They could just follow basketball. Everyone is in the playoffs, Regionals and Sectionals that are seeded locally 🤷‍♂️

No this is dumb

 

[wickerpark wildcat]

No this is dumb

solid argument, thanks

 

[Wassup13]

solid argument, thanks

Two more weeks of playoff blowout football.

No thanks.

 

[LHSTigers94]

They could just follow basketball. Everyone is in the playoffs, Regionals and Sectionals that are seeded locally 🤷‍♂️

Very dangerous to put an 0-9 team against a 9-0 team to start the playoffs.

 

[wickerpark wildcat]

Very dangerous to put an 0-9 team against a 9-0 team to start the playoffs.

You could have the top teams get byes. Already the 1st round is very heavy on blowouts. More than 1/2 the 1st round games had score differentials of more than 4 TDs. Teams could also voluntarily remove themselves from playoffs.