Steve Soucie’s Week 5 playoff projection: Small schools still causing havoc on breaklines

One of the most common misunderstandings about how the IHSA playoff field is set that small school football can have a large effect on how the large brackets are developed as well as the reverse.

So when surprises happen involving a team’s status in regards to whether or not a team is going to make the field, it is extremely important to consider what the size of that school is.

And if it feels like the same teams are almost always riding the classification dance between two classifications, that’s because they pretty much always are.

Wilmington almost always finds itself straddling the Class 2A and Class 3A fields and it is rarely etched in stone until Week 9 closes. The same situations seem to happen for schools like Morris between Class 4A/5A brackets, Providence between 5A/6A and Glenbard West and Plainfield North between 7A/8A.

How those schools end up where they are usually hinge very heavily on the makeup of the fields on the top of the draw (Class 1A) and the bottom (Class 8A) having a huge effect on bubble teams. One surprise team fights its way into the field, the draw sometimes shifts in a way that has those bubble teams moving down into a smaller classification or the reverse.

And those win and or losses could come from anywhere. And for the second consecutive week unexpected losses came from the smaller classifications.

With that, it decreased the number of teams likely to reach five wins and increased the number of teams that would have to be added to the field at 4-5. In all 12 were included in the field, and a interesting little wrinkle emerged this week as there are 11 teams projected to finish at 4-5 with between 44 and 46 points and there were only spots available for seven of them. One point gained or lost among those teams could have a huge impact.

Another wrinkle in the system that has yet to truly figure out what the impact of it is the fact that there are actually 252 teams that are projected to finish with five wins or more. But there are four divisions of the Chicago Public League where only the champions of those divisions will be granted a playoff slot. There are eight teams in those divisions that are projected to have at least five wins but not qualify as non champions of those divisions.

26 Chicago Public League teams qualified for the playoffs last season, but even the most optimistic of projections can’t see a path to the CPL getting more than 20 to 22 bids this year. The difference will likely have to be made up with four win teams.

Below are the projections for the eight classifications with additional information provided about the new teams entering each of the eight fields.

Class 1A

Class 1A Enrollment Range: Up to 303 (Arthur)

New teams in field:

Class 2A

Class 2A Enrollment Range: 304.5 (Bloomington Central Catholic) to 418.5 (Chicago Marshall)

New teams in the field:

Class 3A

Class 3A Enrollment Range: 418.5 (Fairfield) to 572.5 (Richmond-Burton)

New teams in field:

Class 4A

Class 4A Enrollment Range: 575.5 (Johnsburg and Murphysboro) to 882 (Jacksonville)

New teams added to field:

Class 5A

Class 5A Enrollment Range: 892 (Evergreen Park) to 1340.5 (Dunlap)

New teams in the field:

Class 6A

Class 6A Enrollment range: 1374.5 (Simeon) to 1876 (Quincy)

New teams added to field:

Class 7A

Class 7A Enrollment Range: 1877.5 (Bradley-Bourbonnais and Argo) to 2322 (Glenbard West)

Class 8A

Class 8A Enrollment Range: 2351.5 (Plainfield North) and up

New teams in field: