What we learned in Week 9: Wild Week 9 largely denies 4-win playoff qualifiers

It was a common thread that ran through discussion of how many 4-win teams might be needed to round out the IHSA playoff field and based on early season trends it looked like there might be an unprecedented amount of them.

But things started to turn in Week 8 and the list tightened down heading into Week 9.

And after the Week 9 dust had cleared. the list had practically vanished with just one 4-5 team, Chicago Kenwood, needed to fill out the field of 256 teams.

There was already a strange precursor to a weird Week 9 when the fact emerged that there were no direct “play-in” games that had a pair of 4-4 teams playing one another in the entire state. That’s almost statistically impossible, but the fact that it happened revealed an interesting fact.

No 4-4 vs. 4-4 games meant that there were actually less 4-4 teams overall. And since those are the teams that are the ultimate deciders on who rounds out the field there were a few more teams already in the five-win group than years past and unless there was a significant amount of game chaos involving 4-4 teams that were playing teams with lesser records.

It’s usually not a safe bet to bet on a whole bunch of chaos in that group in most years. But last year in the same scenario a whopping seven teams came up short in that situation, that coupled with just three 4-4 teams pulling off upsets from mild to big against opponents with a superior record.

Those numbers basically reversed this season.

Six teams (Collinsville, Prairie Central, Chicago Goode, Clifton Central, Genoa-Kingston and Marengo) all claimed wins. All but two of those wins, Collinsville and Chicago Goode, came over opponents with 5-3 records so the margin between the two teams in question was probably pretty slim to begin with.

Collinsville topped Triad, who entered the game with a 7-1 record, to punch their way in. Collinsville played six teams that won at least six games during the season.

Goode’s case, however, was one that stung a little bit for the 4-win hopefuls. Goode was awarded a forfeit victory over a King team that entered the game at 6-2. That was a slot that seemed like it very well might have gone to a 4-win team.

In the end those wins coupled with just three losses by teams (Homewood-Flossmoor, Wheaton North and Plainfield North) playing teams with records below .500 led to just one team making the field as a 4-win team, Chicago Kenwood.

Those losses also had an interesting effect on who ended up in which classifications. Bubble teams almost all ended up in the larger classifications such as Edwardsville in Class 8A, Wheaton Warrenville South in 7A and Morris in 5A.

Dwindling undefeateds

We already knew that we were going to enter the postseason with the fewest number of undefeated teams in the draw since the institution of the playoffs.

We began Week 9 with 27 undefeated teams, already lower than the previous record of 28 set just last year, and we were guaranteed to drop that number to at least 25 with the 8-0 vs. 8-0 battles between Naperville Central and Lincoln-Way East and Sullivan and Arthur.

But four more teams also dropped from the ranks of the undefeated.

One of those was fairly understandable as East St. Louis pushed a nationally ranked Top-10 team IMG Academy into overtime before falling by a point.

Other previously undefeated teams that took a loss in Week 9 were Seneca, Chester and Geneva.

Power conferences

The CCL/ESCC qualified 13 of its 23 members to the playoffs this season with three other teams falling one win short of joining them.

And while that’s an impressive amount of teams to send to the postseason dance, the nod of conference supremacy probably has to go to the Mid-Suburban West who is sending five of its six members (Palatine, Fremd, Barrington, Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg) to the postseason fracas.

Strength in schedule

Mount Carmel had the strongest schedule in the state this season, one of four CCL/ESCC teams that collected more than 50 opponent win on its schedule.

The rest of the Top-10 were Clark, Oak Park-River Forest, St. Ignatius, Morris, St. Charles East, Alton, Conant, Joliet Catholic and Highland.

28 teams in the state have 50 or more opponent victories on their schedules. Only nine of those schools survived those gauntlet schedules to qualify for the playoffs.