What we learned in Week 8: Fight for fifth win goes to the extreme for some

The drive to get to five is a constant mantra for many teams.

And with the pack of teams sitting at four wins heading into Week 8 being substantially larger than usual at this point of this season there was bound to be some fascinating results between teams fighting to get the five-win plateau.

One of the earliest indicators that Week 8 was going to be a wild one in regards to the teams trying to fight their way into playoff qualification came in the Lockport and Lincoln-Way West contest.

Both teams really needed the win, especially considering what waits for both in Week 9. So it seemed fairly fitting that the game took two overtimes before a gutsy call to go for a two-point conversion netted Lincoln-Way West a 40-39 victory.

That was far from the only wild game involving a team trying and succeeding in getting that fifth victory.

• Marion squeaked out a 44-42 win over Carbondale

• Grant claimed a wild 56-54 triple overtime over Antioch

• Decatur St. Teresa posted a 38-34 win over Breese Mater Dei

• T.F. North edged Tinley Park 35-34.

Didn’t get enough of teams trying to battle to five victories?

60 more teams have one more chance to get to that level in Week 9, including one that wasn’t as fortunate in Week 8.

Homewood-Flossmoor dropped a wild 63-62 decision to Naperville North that kept them at the four-win total. Naperville North’s Jacob Bell seemed particularly determined to deny the Vikings a space in the five-win club as he threw nine touchdown passes.

Ranks of undefeated teams continue to dwindle

A whopping 12 teams dropped from the ranks of the undefeated this week, which already assures that the state playoffs will have the fewest number of undefeated teams in the draw in the history of the IHSA postseason.

This week’s exodus leaves just 27 undefeated teams through eight weeks. For frame of reference last year’s playoff field had 28 undefeated teams after nine weeks.

There’s no possibility the state can finish with more than 25 undefeated regular season teams. At least two will fall from those ranks in Week 9 as 8-0 vs. 8-0 showdowns between Lincoln-Way East and Naperville Central along with Sullivan and Arthur will lock horns in Week 9.

In addition, several of the teams still in the group face very challenging games in Week 9. Most notably, East St. Louis plays nationally ranked IMG Academy out of Bradenton, Florida while others such as Geneva (vs. 7-1 St. Charles North), Chester (vs. 7-1 Waterloo), 1A Belleville Althoff (against 5A/6A Kaneland), and Sycamore (squaring off against 7-1 Cahokia) also have tough matchups.

With that lineup, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the state finish with a number undefeated teams in the low 20′s.

The teams that do end up undefeated are also largely congesting in the smaller classifications. There’s a plausible scenario for Class 2A to end up with as many as six undefeated teams, with possibly four of those ending up on the north side of the bracket.

Conversely, there’s also a plausible scenario where Class 7A could end up with no undefeated teams at all.

CCL/ESCC gauntlet is unmatched

Playing a CCL/ESCC schedule this year turned out to be exactly what almost everyone expected it would be.

There are no undefeated teams remaining in the 23-team conglomerate and just two teams – Marist and Nazareth – have gotten through the eight-game slog with just one loss.

And while 13 of the conference members are all but set in the playoff field with at least five wins on the season, as many as 18 of the league’s membership have at least a slim chance of making the field should things break correctly for them in Week 9.

What is uncommon to the league is the fact that most of its marquee programs are going to find themselves with much larger seed numbers than in previous postseason runs. The Mount Carmel/Loyola Week 9 game usually has the cache of also earning the top or a very high seed for the winner. As both already have two losses there’s no chance of that happening for the winner let alone the loser.

CPL continues to flummox

The Chicago Public League is always one of the more erratic elements in terms of who qualifies for the postseason and who doesn’t.

The 16 Red Division schools in the Public League which features largely the schools that are more likely to compete well in the postseason all follow the same guidelines required of other IHSA schools trying to qualify for the postseason.

The CPL restructured again in the offseason and in the addition to the Red Division also created the White Division where there are two tiers of teams. In the first tier, teams are in eight-team conferences and also follow the same eligibility requirements. In the second tier, teams are in six-team conferences where only the champion of the conference earns IHSA eligibility and the runner-up in each division can earn a playoff spot by winning a Week 9 matchup against a runner-up from another second tier White conference.

The league has already has conference titles awarded to South Shore, Marshall, Prosser and Kennedy. Phoenix Military and Clemente will play off for a playoff slot while Agriculture Science and Noble/Comer will meet for another. Those playoff games are between teams that will likely end up in different classifications if they win so they could effect the bubbles in any one of a number of classes.

Even the CPL Red, which is usually fairly stable, wasn’t immune to some chaos this week.

Previously undefeated Lincoln Park lost to Amundsen which kept Amundsen’s path to the playoffs alive, while Lane hung on to its hopes by toppling Payton. Lane can only get to 4-5 even with a Week 9 win, but surprisingly Lane has more playoff points that almost anyone in the state, which makes them an ideal candidate for a four-win slot if they are needed to fill the field.

But in order to do it they’ve got to beat Amundsen, whose upset got them to 4-4, and unlike Lane doesn’t have enough points to get into the playoffs if they finish with four wins.