What we learned in Week 7: Clean ledgers getting harder to find

As the results rolled in during play in Week 7, I increasingly felt validation coming for what I genuinely believe is going to happen in the postseason this year.

And that’s utter and complete chaos.

Excluding two programs, Lincoln-Way East and East St. Louis, who almost never seem to scuffle with whomever is on the other sideline, most of the perceived top squads around the state either struggled to break free from, or in some cases took a surprising loss in Week 7.

And when the dust cleared just 39 playoff-eligible teams closed the week without a loss.

I’ve only been officially tracking that number for the last six full seasons, but it’s the lowest number of undefeated teams during that time. For frame of reference it was 43 undefeated teams last year at this time and significantly higher in years before that.

12 of those 39 play one of the other undefeated teams in the final two weeks of the season.

But those aren’t even the numbers that I find more interesting.

Just 102 teams have “clinched” a playoff spot by amassing at least six wins at this point, and nearly every one of those 102 teams has at least one daunting game left among the two regular season games they have left to play.

With all those factors considered, it is not mathematically possible for the postseason bracket to include more than 80 teams with 8-1 or 9-0 records.

On top of that, a heavier concentration of those teams are in the smallest classifications. So when you start to look at the potential bracketing of teams, 6-3 teams with good to great playoff points are going to have a very real possibility of earning first round home playoff games.

That’s certainly happened before, but the quantity of those games seems almost certain to increase.

Jumbled mess in CCL/ESCC

It seemed more than possible that the 24 teams in the CCL/ESCC might do more damage to one another in trying to qualify for the playoffs than anything else.

Loaded schedules make it challenging to do much more than tread lightly around the .500 mark.

But this has been even more muddled than anyone expected.

Even programs that everyone expects to breeze into the playoff field, either are staring at relatively low seeds or still on shaky ground in regards to playoff qualification.

Just five teams – DePaul Prep, Marist, St. Laurence and Fenwick officially clinched playoff berths with wins on the field and there will no sweating out qualification in Nazareth after making the field as a 4-5 and eventually winning the state championship as its place was locked in with its forfeit victory over De La Salle. For all intents and purposes Benet, Montini, St. Rita, St. Francis, Mount Carmel and Loyola are in with five wins and more than enough playoff points.

And Joliet Catholic will lock a fifth win with a forfeit in Week 8 from De La Salle.

But after those 12, the others are in scramble mode.

The league has just three teams currently with four wins. Brother Rice, Marmion and the aforementioned Joliet Catholic. Brother Rice certainly doesn’t want to drop its final two games and wait to see if they get in as a 4-5, but it seems likely they’d get in as a 4-5 at-large team if they had to. Marmion, however, will need a fifth win as it is one of the few teams in the CCL/ESCC who does not have a voluminous total of playoff points.

Then there’s the group of 3-4 teams and there’s some teams of consequence in there such as IC Catholic, St. Ignatius and Providence. Yes, all of these teams have good to great playoff point situations, and while the numbers seem to indicate the 256-team bracket is going to need 4-5 teams to fill those spots they aren’t going to be unlimited.

Does anybody want the No. 1 seed?

A number of teams have stumbled in the last couple of weeks that appeared to be on the path to an undefeated record and a likely top or very high seed that comes with that accomplishment.

That phenomena has been most noticeable in the group of teams expected to land in the range for Class 7A.

Downers Grove North was the latest team to fall from that potential group. losing to Lyons in Week 7. After that loss the number of teams that could fall in Class 7A and remain undefeated after Week 7 is down to three.

One of those, Quincy, has a less than zero chance of sliding into Class 6A.

The other two are from the Chicago Public League, Lincoln Park and Whitney Young, and both have challenging games in Week 9 that could keep them from reaching that mark as well.

So schools that took one loss but have a large pile of playoff points certainly still have a chance of earning a very high seed in Class 7A, possibly even the No. 1 seed.

Forfeits and hurricanes

It feels like there have been more forfeits than usual in Illinois this season, which is indeed a disturbing trend.

It also has started to foster some interesting matchups between two teams that would rather play nine regular season games than take a week off.

Week 7′s version of that paired a pair of undefeated teams in Dixon and Johnston City, with Dixon emerging with the showdown win.

In reality, the loss probably isn’t going to hurt Johnston City’s playoff fortunes that much. While they could have settled for the forfeit win and potentially joined the higher level of win total group, the added potential playoff points from Dixon will likely rocket them to the top of the teams at their actual win level.

That’s one of the few positive scenarios that emerge from the forfeiture circumstance, but Illinois is far from the only state that is experiencing issues with it as well. Neighboring states such as Missouri and Wisconsin have had problems with it too often affecting Illinois schools that have some of those schools on their schedules.

One of the most unique quirks that has happened this year is Illinois teams missing out on potential playoffs points because of the effects of hurricane weather.

Both East St. Louis and Lincoln-Way East lost chances for opponents to pick up points for them because games were postponed because of weather concerns and issues. Those games will likely be made up, but since those states play football deeper into the calendar, those results won’t be taken care of on the field until after the Illinois playoff field is set.