Monday, November 30, 2009

One final thought...

...on the 2009 Illinois high school football season (I promise). Is it really necessary to have all those different classes? Couldn't the IHSA just combine 6A, 7A, and 8A into one big class?

Take Providence, for example. They won the Catholic Blue (arguably the state's best conference) by beating St. Rita, Mt. Carmel, and Loyola. St. Rita competed in 7A in the post-season after beating Mt. Carmel in the regular season, 54-26. Mt. Carmel, which competes in 8A, handed Stevenson their first loss of the season in the playoffs, 23-16. And Loyola almost beat Maine South in the semifinals. So where does Providence end up competing in the postseason? 6A. And they get handled fairly easily by Cary-Grove. Now why the heck aren't those schools in 8A? And why can't they have a shot at Maine South? Personally, I'd love to see Cary-Grove play Maine South.

And what about Wheaton Warrenville South? After they got over the shock of the first five minutes, they settled down and played Maine South evenly. (The Tigers went on to win the 7A title.) But who knows how that game or the Maine South-Loyola game would have turned out on a neutral field?

I could go on and on but I think I've made my point. So what's the deal, IHSA? Would it kill you to have to exclude all those mediocre 5-4 teams from the playoffs if you combined these three classes? So what! I don't care if you have to exclude some 6-3 teams. I just want to see the best teams play each other. And I'll bet they do, too.

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