What did we learn week 7!?!?!
- Thread starter LakeCtyNewt
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Do your research. They play predominantly 8A schools, when multiplied and all things even.
| Enrollment | 2019 Class | |
| Wilmette (Loyola Academy) | 3275.25 | 8A |
| Chicago (Marist) | 2678.78 | 8A |
| Niles (Notre Dame) | 2442 | 8A |
| Chicago (St. Ignatius) | 2380.95 | 8A |
| Chicago (Brother Rice) | 2207.7 | 8A |
| Chicago (St. Rita) | 1915.65 | 7A |
| Arlington Heights (St. Viator) | 1452 | 6A |
| Burbank (St. Laurence) | 1172.325 | 5A |
| Chicago (Phillips) | 668 | 4A |
I believe all of these catholic schools should be 8A. We do recruit student/athletes, there’s no denying it. It appears BR is dropping to 7A. This doesn’t embarrass me per se, but it sounds like we’ve been seeing a drop in enrollment for years. Every test day we hear that MC has way more kids test than us yet they’ve been 7A for awhile & we are now falling to 7A for the first time. I assure you there would be big problems on 99 & Pulaski if we ever fell to 4A.
I don't know if it's the right thing or not in Loyola's case. I wouldn't have blamed Loyola for remaining in 7A. I'm personally happy we are in 8A, but I'm an alumnus, parent of a graduate, and a fan.
It's going to be really easy to second guess that decision if LA doesn't make it to the title game, much less win it.
If I were a student on the team, and Loyola DOESN'T win 8A, I'm for sure going to wonder if I could have hoisted a 7A title trophy. If I were the dad of a kid on the team that doesn't win it all in 8A, I might even question the administration's decision of denying my kid that less risky opportunity to be a state champion.
It's never black and white in a call like this. There's always gray.
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So in the rare year that a school like Leo makes the playoffs, you want them to play schools like LWE, MS, and Warren? Um, no.
I can understand that stance of all being 8A, but I dont think it works in practicality because it essentially makes an all private/open enrollment class (I would include Simeon/Phillips type teams in the group) and unless we're actually doing that I dont want it as a by product nor do I think it's necessary. I was thinking more like the top 10 open enrollment schools (using some imaginary metric for now) go 8A, next 10 7A, so on and so forth. Yes, I do see problems with that and it's not fleshed out yet. but @ramblinman already poo poo'd on my idea of making the enrollment the average of all public schools in the 30 mile radius dropping the largest and smallest.
I think having a dispassionate (or as dispassionate as possible) person make that decision is the best bet, not the players, coaches, or parents. At the end of the day we're all in a system that we should try to make work for as many of us as possible. I am not the conspiracy theorist, and I tend to understand where the IHSA is coming from in their decisions. But the decision to count the spring season makes me think they wanted a JCA to run wild over 4A and other similar scenarios to create an outrage, which I think we will see.
The best way I think to avoid that outrage would be to self assign a class. Loyola says theyre 8A to avoid falling to 6A and upsetting the apple cart. I think Phillips saw the same thing when they started requesting up. But that's just my speculation.
100 percent spot on ramblin. Who is the appropriate person to make the call? Why are they even allowed to make a call like that?
Loyola gets bounced from 8A in round 2 and those seniors can spend the rest of their lives wondering if maybe they’d have been able to play three more weeks in 7A.
it could be the right call, but who is to say? And the fact that it is a two year commitment makes it even more paralyzingly difficult to make that call, whereas the knee jerk reaction for almost all programs will just become staying put.
a solution to all of this? Football enrollment needs to come back.
In my opinion, the difference between 7A and 8A is the first two rounds. Once you get to the quarters and beyond, the competition level is the same. The final 8 in both classes play at a similar level.
Because it was too arbitrary and too punitive for the smallest private schools like Walther Christian, at 225 kids, having their enrollment become the average of all public schools in their 30 mile radius that includes behemoth schools like Evanston, New Trier, Glenbrook South, Leyden, LT, Morton, Lane, Taft, OPRF, etc. -- all of which have enrollments above 3,000. Drop the largest -- Morton? Zero impact on the outcome. Dropping the smallest is equally meaningless. You won't be able to find ANY football playing suburban public schools within Walther's 30 mile radius that aren't classified in 4A or above. The majority are 7A and 8A schools.
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What was the rationale of getting rid of the football enrollment? That seemed to work pretty well.
Thinking about how to come up with a fair solution makes your head want to explode. Seems like the most logical is classing by school size and allowing schools the same boundaries to work within. But that obviously blows up due to privates being smaller and having larger boundaries. I guess it'll never be perfect. Was it better when we had just 4 classes like when we played in the 80's? I dunno.
To be accurate, there were never 4 classes, there were 5 classes in the 70's and 6 classes starting in 1980. IMO, I think 6 classes with football enrollment was the best scenario.
My bad. We were 4A and I thought it stopped there. My world revolves around Cary LOL.
Football enrollment wasn't pushing title winning private schools like Driscoll up because, playing in the old Suburban Catholic Conference, Driscoll wasn't playing very many substantially larger schools. Don't forget that the FBE formula eliminated a school's largest and smallest opponents and then took the average of the remaining seven enrollments. They only schools that were impacted by FBE were those that played mostly schools in classes larger than their own. FBE would often give a school a larger enrollment, but not necessarily large enough to bump them up a class.
With the multiplier, the IHSA board saw an opportunity to treat the "problem" of private schools winning too many titles with a sledge hammer instead of a tweezers and they jumped at the chance.
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Disagree.
2019 8A quarterfinalists
Game 25 — Chicago (Brother Rice) 38, Minooka 21
Game 26 — Gurnee (Warren) 18, Bolingbrook 6
Game 27 — Chicago (Marist) 41, Wilmette (Loyola Academy) 27
Game 28 — Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East) 26, Flossmoor (Homewood-F.) 7
2019 7A Quarterfinalists
Game 25 — Chicago (Mt. Carmel) 24, Chicago (Phillips) 8
Game 26 — Villa Park (Willowbrook) 28, Lake Zurich 10
Game 27 — LaGrange Park (Nazareth Academy) 38, Batavia 24
Game 28 — Rolling Meadows 20, Wheaton (W. Warrenville South) 3
2018 8A quarterfinalists
Game 25 — Chicago (Brother Rice) 20, Gurnee (Warren) 0
Game 26 — Chicago (Marist) 21, Flossmoor (Homewood-F.) 7
Game 27 — Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East) 50, Edwardsville (H.S.) 14
Game 28 — Wilmette (Loyola Academy) 17, Park Ridge (Maine South) 0
2018 7A quarterfinalists
Game 25 — LaGrange Park (Nazareth Academy) 34, Chicago (Simeon) 27
Game 26 — Batavia 34, Villa Park (Willowbrook) 27 (OT)
Game 27 — Chicago (Mt. Carmel) 29, East St. Louis (Sr.) 19
Game 28 — St. Charles (North) 21, Wheaton (W. Warrenville South) 10
2017 8A quarterfinalists
Game 25 — Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East) 31, Oswego (H.S.) 0
Game 26 — Park Ridge (Maine South) 39, Naperville (Central) 28
Game 27 — Edwardsville (H.S.) 28, Minooka 25
Game 28 — Wilmette (Loyola Academy) 30, Chicago (Marist) 10
2017 7A quarterfinalists
Game 25 — Lisle (Benet Academy) 14, New Lenox (Lincoln-Way Central) 10
Game 26 — Batavia 20, New Lenox (Lincoln-Way West) 10
Game 27 — Chicago (Mt. Carmel) 21, East St. Louis (Sr.) 18
Game 28 — Lake Zurich 49, Chicago (St. Rita) 17
I'm not suggesting that there is a huge gulf between the two classes, but neither is it accurate to say that the competition level is the same.
In each year you posted, didn't a 7A team on the list beat an 8A team on the list?
In 2018, didn't the 7A champ lose 34-13 to an 8A school that didn't make it past the semis?
When you argue a point like the one you made, you can't cherry pick the outliers to support it, and neither can I pick one to attack it.
Rather, it's a smell test. And, the smell of the quarterfinalists from 8A generally is just a little sweeter than the ones from 7A.
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JCA has never beat Mascoutah from what I can find. Wouldn't bet on the Indians this year(although they are locks to be in different classes anyways), but I think until they lose to JCA, you shouldn't be writing them off as below their level
The point I am making is it’s an debatable argument period. There are outliers on both ends and most are in the middle.
That JCA team was Sophomores, I’m not familiar with this years Mascoutah team but I am familiar with this years JCA team and now that those kids are seniors they would smack around Mascoutah.
Like I said originally, I wouldn’t bet on Mascoutah if they played this year either. But that Mascoutah team in 2019 finished fourth in a six team conference, so it’s not like it was their greatest team ever.
I definitely didn’t mean to sound negative of JCA, but rather to point out that their are respectable squads in 4A/5A. Full respect to JCA here
Oh lest we forget!
Remembering Mascoutah High School’s 1979 state championship football team
I'll take the 8A middle. You can have the 7A.
Just for grins, let's take a look at it.
Here are the 2019 8A quarterfinals, semis, and final teams and results:
Quarterfinals
Game 25 — Chicago (Brother Rice) 38, Minooka 21Game 26 — Gurnee (Warren) 18, Bolingbrook 6
Game 27 — Chicago (Marist) 41, Wilmette (Loyola Academy) 27
Game 28 — Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East) 26, Flossmoor (Homewood-F.) 7
Semifinals
Game 29 — Gurnee (Warren) 28, Chicago (Brother Rice) 0Game 30 — Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East) 24, Chicago (Marist) 7
Championship
Game 31 — Frankfort (Lincoln-Way East) 12, Gurnee (Warren) 0And here are same teams and results in 7A.
Quarterfinals
Game 25 — Chicago (Mt. Carmel) 24, Chicago (Phillips) 8Game 26 — Villa Park (Willowbrook) 28, Lake Zurich 10
Game 27 — LaGrange Park (Nazareth Academy) 38, Batavia 24
Game 28 — Rolling Meadows 20, Wheaton (W. Warrenville South) 3
Semifinals
Game 29 — Chicago (Mt. Carmel) 27, Villa Park (Willowbrook) 6Game 30 — LaGrange Park (Nazareth Academy) 42, Rolling Meadows 14
Championship
Game 31 — Chicago (Mt. Carmel) 37, LaGrange Park (Nazareth Academy) 13Let's identify your outliers and let's see if we can agree that the top two outliers in each class are the finalists. I propose that the bottom two outliers will be the teams that lost in the quarters to the teams that lost in the semis. If you can agree with the outliers, then here are your middles in each class:
8A
Brother Rice
Marist
Bolingbrook
H-F
7A
Willowbrook
Rolling Meadows
Batavia
Phillips
In 2018, your 8A middles were Marist, Lincoln Way East, Maine South, and Warren while your 7A middles were Batavia, MC, WWS and Simeon.
In 2017, your 8A middles were Marist, Oswego, Maine South and Edwardsville, while your 7A middles were MC, Benet, Lincoln Way West and St. Rita.
I still think 8A smells a tad sweeter.
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I'm gonna go out on a limb and say go_rice was being sarcastic!
The initial part of your argument was backed factually and then you chose to throw your opinion in there as if the first part and last part somehow correlated. And it goes without saying that you are entitled to your opinion.
But in reality, statistics and facts, as you indicated initially, would suggest that 7A and 8A are rather even based on mixed results when top teams in both classes meet in the regular season matchups.
Yes, it is absolutely part fact and part opinion. I don't have the time or inclination to take the analysis further than I already have, so I need to insert opinion at some point. It was LHSTigers94's opinion that started it all. It was he who narrowed the conversation to the middles of the final eight teams. Once you can agree on the middles from among the quarterfinalists for each classification, I think 8A comes out on top pretty consistently. Again. I'm not suggesting there is a big gulf here.
Yes, I started the opinion of the middle of the pack because to me that is when the classes start to even out. Fans of each class can make solid arguments for which one is tougher. What I like and respect is teams like LA and ESL that feel they are a certain level and are willing to play at that level. At the end of the day you have to play good sound football to win a championship at any class. With high school kids, there are no guaranties.
Based on what fact? It's very interesting how strong opinions are for the teams individuals like. JCA only beating CR 30-20 says a lot.
Without multiple D1 kids. I despise JCA, I’m a Naz guy, I know elite teams when I see them tho.
To be fair, JC was up 30-6 midway through the 4th and was playing without Anderson. And Irish LB could never be confused with a JCA fan
Does it? JCA was up 23-0 very late in the 3rd before CR got their first score to make it 23-6. JCA went up 30-6 in the 4th, and CR scored on the ensuing KO with a 95 yard return. CR scored again late in the game to make the final score look respectable. The reality is that JCA was never behind and had the game well in hand.
Sorry Mac...
Miss ya though, these boards needs your common sensical DuKane points of view
Been hard to stay plugged in considering both my kids are well out of HS and STC East has taken a complete nosedive in recent years. I’ve always admired and respected the Batavia program so you have a fan in me.Sorry Mac...
Miss ya though, these boards needs your common sensical DuKane points of view
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