What we learned in Week 13: Private schools dominant in semifinal round

The CCL/ESCC has been talked about all season in regards to what playoff qualifying teams might do once freed of the brutality of their regular season schedule.

It appears that talk was more than justified after what happened in the semifinal round of the 2024 playoffs. Eight CCL/ESCC teams started the round with the maximum of six of them being able to advance into the finals.

Six did.

Only St. Francis (who lost to conference brethren Nazareth) and St. Rita (who also fell to league mate Mount Carmel) fell out of the CCL/ESCC ranks in the semifinals, with all other six entrants who played non-CCL/ESCC conference opponents moving on to the finals, many by convincing margins.

Based on conversation heading into the semifinals one of the results, a 27-24 win by Loyola over Lincoln-Way East came as a little bit of a surprise.

Loyola quarterback Ryan Fitzgerald was very candid about what he feels allowed himself and his Rambler teammates to be making the trip to Illinois State University this weekend.

“Guys were saying that it doesn’t matter that they weren’t battle tested. And it showed that they hadn’t played a four quarter game all year,” Fitzgerald said. “And I think that’s a problem. Obviously they are a public school and they play those teams and it’s not fair to them that they don’t get to play the best competition.

“They don’t have those games in the regular season where they go four quarters and they play the best teams in the state. Playing St. Francis, Mount Carmel, Brother Rice and Marist, playing teams that are playing for semifinals and championships shows how battle tested we are.”

That pedigreed schedule didn’t only help Loyola, the other qualifiers from the CCL/ESCC (Nazareth, Joliet Catholic, Montini, Mount Carmel and DePaul Prep) only one of their games was remotely in doubt for the outcome.

If you look outside of the CCL/ESCC for finals qualifiers two more schools from the private school ranks are also joining the title game fray. Belleville Althoff, an independent school, has advanced to the 1A final, while Chicago Christian of the Chicagoland Christian Conference is making its first ever title appearance.

In all, eight private schools are playing in title games this season, the most since the IHSA expanded the playoff system to eight classes in 2001. The previous high was seven in the 2018 finals.

It’s a marked disparity that will probably draw a lot of conversation heading into championship weekend.

Excluding the Chicago Public League’s non-boundary/private schools there are just 49 11-man eligible schools that are classified as either private or non-boundaried competing in the IHSA playoffs. That’s 9.9% of the 11-man teams playing football in the state that are eligible to compete in the finals, but those same schools will make up 50% of the teams participating in the finals.

Close calls aplenty

The semifinal round usually provides a number of fantastic finishes that often cause people to ponder whether or not games were played that would have been better suited as a state championship game on the biggest stage.

And we certainly got some doozies.

Seven of the 16 semifinal games were decided by a touchdown or less, but a few teams continued to show their affinity for playing nailbiters.

Probably the wildest finish came in the Monticello/Tolono Unity matchup.

Monticello scored with 13 seconds remaining in the game to take a 23-20 lead over Tolono Unity and needed only to survive a Hail Mary pass to clinch its spot in the Class 3A title game.

And for a second it looked like they didn’t.

Tolono Unity completed the Hail Mary touchdown pass, but it was washed away by a penalty for an ineligible man down field and the Sages were able to hold on for a victory.

Batavia had already shown its propensity for end of game theatrics in a wild win over Lincoln-Way West in the second round, it turned the trick against yet another Lincoln-Way school, this time edging out Lincoln-Way Central.

Lincoln-Way Central scored with just over two minutes to play and appeared to have the upper hand to a Class 7A title slot, but Batavia marched down the field and scored with just over 30 seconds to play to send the Bulldogs to ISU.

Looking ahead

The results of Saturday’s semifinal game has already locked in three programs to face the IHSA’s Success Formula for the two seasons following this one (2025-26 and 2026-27).

By guaranteeing a trophy finish in this year’s final Joliet Catholic, Nazareth and Mount Carmel will each be moved up one classification from where the success was achieved. For Joliet Catholic and Nazareth that means a move up to 6A for the next two postseasons, while Mount Carmel will be moving to Class 8A. This will happen to those schools regardless if the new enrollment numbers for the next two year classification period (which will be released in the spring) indicate that they should be placed in a lower classification.

Schools that earned or had multipliers removed for the next period can also be indicated at this point.

14 schools played with a multiplier the last two seasons: Brother Rice, Marist, Mount Carmel, St. Ignatius, St. Rita, St. Teresa, IC Catholic, Joliet Catholic, Nazareth, Providence, Fenwick, Sacred Heart Griffin, St. Francis and Loyola.

SIx of those schools will lose the multiplier during the next two year period: Brother Rice (by using this year’s qualifier data it drops Brother Rice from 7A to 5A), Marist (8A to 6A), St. Ignatius (8A to 6A), Decatur St. Teresa (2A to 1A) and Fenwick (7A to 5A).

Sacred Heart Griffin will keep its multiplier, but will lose its success formula designation and will probably move the Cyclones from 5A to 4A although they could end up staying in 5A.

Nine schools will have the multiplier reattached or added for the first time: Belleville Althoff (1A to 3A), St. Laurence (4A to 6A), Hope Academy (1A to 3A), DePaul Prep (4A to 7A/8A), Montini (3A to 4A), Chicago Christian (2A to 3A), Quincy Notre Dame (2A to 4A), Wheaton Academy (4A to 5A) and Normal University (4A to 5A).

All of this moving around could be altered slightly by the release of the new classification numbers for the next two year period which will be released in the spring by the IHSA. The reason for such a substantial jump for DePaul Prep is an expected substantial increase in the enrollment number of 833 currently used to classify the school in addition to the multiplier being tacked on.