Steve Soucie’s Week 2 playoff projection: Transition from Week 1 to Week 2 leads to major shifts

The transition from Week 1 to Week 2 on the field often means the most to team development.

Developing the playoff projection always seems to lead to the largest moves in the 256-team IHSA playoff field between Week 1 and Week 2.

33 new teams entered the projection from Week 1 to Week 2. That’s not an astonishingly high number for this early in the process. For example 37 new teams entered the projection last year between Week 1 and Week 2.

But quite possibly the most important thing to watch is not necessarily how many teams move into the projection but who those teams are and where they fit on the enrollment board.

We talked a little bit about the Chicago Public League changes and how it will affect the field. 21 CPS teams are projected into the field, but more importantly, seven different CPL schools are in the field than a week ago. And unlike most conferences where schools are usually no more than two classifications different from the smallest school to the largest school, that’s not the case in the CPL.

One could very easily replace a team four classifications different by swapping two CPL teams thus moving the lines around on the bubble for every team on the fence for all of those classifications. And until they actually get into divisional play, CPL teams are almost impossible to try to forecast this early in the season. One CPL Division has a collective record of 2-10 through two weeks and the two teams that won games were promptly soundly beaten in their other contest.

Week 2 also provided some clarity outside of the CPL. Some toss-up games on paper provided a road map for a few teams to get to five victories that may not have existed before the week. As such the number of 4-5 teams projected to make the field dipped from 19 to 12 from Week 1 to Week 2. But it is still very much something we’ll need to continue monitoring as more and more games start to pop up that seem to determine which teams make the field with five wins and which ones are waiting to see if they have the points to get in with just four victories. The numbers still very much indicate that more than a handful of 4-win teams are going to be need to fill the field of 256 teams.

There were also some dramatic moves in regards to some teams’ seeding. The biggest was certainly a shift in Class 1A where an always difficult to figure out Western Illinois Valley Conference produced one of the surprising results of the week as Hardin Calhoun upset defending Class 1A state champion Camp Point Central. Calhoun was on the outside looking in in the first projection as trying to sort out the WIVC needed more data, in Calhoun’s case more than enough evidence was provided and they rocketed up the seed board in Class 1A. Other big positive shifts were made by Oswego, West Aurora and Lake Forest.

Another small wrinkle was added to the mix this week. Originally it was believed that just two programs would be using the dispensation to “Play Up”. East St. Louis has played up for several seasons and is doing so again as its enrollment would put then in the Class 5A field, but playing up moves them from 5A to 6A. St. Rita does the same, electing to play in Class 7A in lieu of 5A where its enrollment indicates they would be place.

This week both Antioch and Glenbard South were cleared to “Play Up” and will play in 6A. Antioch currently projects as a 6A team without playing up, but has bounced back and forth between the two classes in years past and will play in 6A even if they fall in the enrollment list as a 5A school.

Here is the Week 2 playoff projection for all eight classes:

Class 1A

Class 2A

Class 3A

Class 4A

Class 5A

Class 6A

Class 7A

Class 8A