What we learned in championship weekend: Private schools display strength, re-spark controversy

It was inevitable that the state championship weekend was going to be dominated by the conversation of private vs. public schools in the title games.

After all, nine private school qualifiers made up the list of 16 finalists on championship weekend, making up over half of the teams in the final weekend’s field.

It isn’t a surprise to see a disproportional amount of teams from private schools on championship weekend. They have been represented in a larger proportion of how many schools they occupy of all football playing schools in almost every postseason in the 50 years that the IHSA has had the playoff system.

For the record, private schools account for 10% of all playoff eligible IHSA football playing schools.

That disparity is somewhat commonplace for finals weekend in regards to representation; what made this weekend different was the complete dominance those schools showed in winning title.

Seven title games featured at least one private school (Class 5A was represented by two private schools). All seven of those classifications were won by private schools. The margin of victory in the six games where private schools played a public school, all of the private schools claimed victory and they outscored their public brethren by a combined 283-76. None of the seven games were decided by less than three touchdowns.

East St. Louis, in Class 6A, was the only non-private school to go home with a championship trophy this weekend.

The crux of this argument stems on how teams are classified currently by the IHSA. Private and non-boundaried schools are subject to a 1.65 multiplier. However, schools that do not meet a certain standard of success can accept a multiplier waiver to decrease their classification enrollment.

And this seems to be the centerpiece of the complaint against the current system.

All four of the teams that won state championships on the first day of state title game competition: Belleville Althoff (Class 1A), Chicago Christian (Class 2A), Montini (Class 3A) and DePaul Prep (Class 4A) were competing this season with multiplier waivers.

For the uniformed, multiplier waivers are granted to teams that don’t win at least three playoff games over the two seasons that enrollment is currently factored by. This season’s enrollment numbers and classifications were calculated from the results of the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

All of Friday’s champions slipped underneath that threshold during those seasons, allowing them to fall down several classifications.

All of these teams, plus several others, will be moving up in classification for the next two seasons. That fact did nothing to help the competitive balance of this weekend’s championship games.

Seven of the eight private school qualifiers into championship games this weekend will be playing in higher classifications next season. Only Loyola, already in the highest classification, will remain in its current classification next season.

But on the flipside, several other teams that didn’t previously qualify for waivers do now. And some of them are fairly prominent and probably shouldn’t have them.

It will likely continue the cycle, but with different teams filling the positions of the ones that have departed to larger classifications.

And there’s nothing at least right now, legislatively, that can be done to correct this obvious imbalance. None of the possible amendments to IHSA policy currently under discussion to be implemented deal with the multiplier waiver policy in any sport.

The earliest any possible alternative procedure can be suggested for implementation is next fall and even if implemented it would not go into play prior to the 2026 football season.

Saturday spotlight on quarterbacks

The final day of games at the state finals was quite a showcase for graduating senior quarterbacks.

First in Class 5A, where Nazareth’s Logan Malachuk was added to a very short list of quarterbacks that have guided their teams to three consecutive state championships. Along the way, Malachuk became the state’s all-time leader in career passing yardage with 11,184 yards according to Nazareth statistics.

In Class 7A, Batavia sophomore Michael Vander Luitgaren set a new state record for passing yardage in a 7A title game, with 390. Mount Carmel’s Jack Elliott fell just one yard short of the previous state record for passing yardage in a 7A game by throwing for 301, but he did claim the record for that class by tossing six touchdown passes.

Loyola’s Ryan Fitzgerald didn’t post a gaudy stat line. But the Iowa bound quarterback showed exactly why the Hawkeyes should enjoy having his services as he masterfully engineered the Ramblers offense that finished off a series of dominant second half postseason performances.

But perhaps the most interesting quarterback story of the weekend was the effort of the starting quarterback of the Class 6A champion, East St. Louis, Kendrick Lyons.

Lyons transferred into East St. Louis from Granite City, a program that hasn’t won a single game since 2022. But the senior quickly demonstrated he was capable of putting his past struggles behind him, guiding the Flyers offense with a steady hand.

He finished off Saturday’s state title win over Geneva by going 14-for-21 for 225 yards and two passing touchdowns. And while the big showy plays were present such as an 81-yard touchdown pass, Lyons ability to simply take the best option rather than trying to make an explosive play on every snap made the Flyers much more lethal on offense and allowed them to pile up 548 yards of offense in the win.

Star of the show

It seemed pretty unlikely that Althoff running back Dierre Hill Jr. would live up to the hype.

The Oregon-bound speedster entered the state finals averaging almost 18 yards a carry. after all.

Hill Jr.’s day started auspiciously with a three-yard loss on his first play from scrimmage. But two plays after that, Hill Jr. popped off a 59-yard touchdown run, the first of seven total touchdowns he’d score in the game.

He’d also add a pair of two-point conversions, giving him a whopping 46 individual points scored in a state final, smashing the previous record of 36 that was shared by several players.

He also finished with 438 rushing yards, the second highest total in IHSA history in a state final behind Joliet Catholic’s Ty Isaac, who ran for 515 yards in 2011. Hill Jr. also gained 80 yards on one reception that went for a touchdown, which looked like it also could have been classified as a run, rather than a pass reception. Bad it been scored that way Hill Jr. would own that record as well.