Whether by victories or by point system, Railer football looks to qualify for IHSA postseason

 

[October 20, 2023] 

The formula for the 5-3 LCHS Railers to make it into the IHSA football playoffs is simple: win and they’re in.

A victory this Friday would give Lincoln its sixth victory of the season and would assure the Railers of a spot in the playoffs, as teams with six or more wins automatically qualify and advance to the postseason. However, with this week’s opponent being the perennially-strong Chatham Glenwood Titans, LCHS will have its hands full.

Glenwood enters the contest with a 5-3 overall record identical to Lincoln’s. However, the Titans have an edge in looking at the results of the teams’ games against common opponents this season:

• Lanphier – Lincoln defeated Lanphier 41-8, Glenwood defeated Lanphier 77-0

• Eisenhower – Lincoln won 46-6, Glenwood won 58-0

• Springfield – Lincoln lost 29-12, Glenwood won 33-0

• University High – Lincoln lost 49-28, Glenwood won 35-0

• Rochester – Lincoln lost 55-0, Glenwood lost 63-21.

The games are played on the field, however, and not on paper or based on prognostications. While Lincoln faces a tall task against the Titans, a sixth victory on the season would be huge for the program and give the Railers a boost of extra momentum into the playoffs.

However, if the Titans prevail over the Railers, Lincoln still is eligible to participate in the postseason playoffs, but the team is not guaranteed a spot.

According to IHSA assistant executive director Sam Knox, football is the only IHSA sport where only a select number of teams (256) participate in the postseason rather than every team taking part.

“With football, we can only play one game per week,” he said. “If we have more teams in the playoffs, that means it’s going to take more weeks to play the entire posteason.

“Football is so different than other sports with the physical contact that it’s probably not a good idea to have a 1-and-8 team versus an 8-and-1 team in the first round of the playoffs. So teams have to qualify or earn their spot in the postseason.”

The list of postseason teams begins being filled with teams that receive automatic bids, said Knox, who serves as the lead IHSA administrator responsible for football.

“We take the top 256 football schools in the state,” he said. “This year, we had around 520 schools play football, so we’re taking roughly the top half of the schools starting with the 9-0 teams, then the 8-1 teams, and all the way down to the 5-4 teams.”

Once the automatic bids are given, the remaining spots are filled using a system involving playoff points based on the strength of each team’s schedule.

“The IHSA has had this system in place for many years,” Knox said. “Most people like it because it’s pretty simple to understand.”

According to the IHSA web site, 149 teams have clinched spots in the IHSA football playoffs as of October 19, leaving 107 at-large berths available for teams to qualify. The chances of a five-win team making the playoffs are helped the better their opponents fare in their schedules, as opponents’ wins add to teams’ point totals.

If the Railers are defeated by Glenwood in their final regular-season game, Lincoln would remain with five wins on the season and could only qualify for the postseason through the playoff points system.

“For every opponent on Lincoln’s schedule, Lincoln gets a playoff point for every game that team wins,” Knox said. “So if Rochester goes 9-and-0, Lincoln is getting nine playoff points from Rochester. If U-High goes 7-and-2, then Lincoln is getting seven points from U-High. So, the stronger the schedule you play, the better off you are for making the playoffs if you land at 5-4.”

Lincoln’s opponents on this season’s schedule are Lanphier (which currently has no wins), Eisenhower (one win), Springfield (two wins), Manual (one win), Southeast (one win), Jacksonville, (four wins). Rochester (eight wins), U High (six wins) and Glenwood (five wins). That currently gives Lincoln 28 playoff points, which presently makes the Railers the No. 29 team in Class 4A. However, the point totals for Lincoln and all teams will change based on the results of the games taking place this week.

Translation: if Lincoln loses against Glenwood this Friday and the Railers finish the regular season with a 5-4 overall record, Lincoln fans should hope for all of the Railers’ other opponents on this season’s schedule to win so Lincoln receives more playoff points.

Knox said there is no “magic number” that, if teams earn that many playoff points, they are assured a spot in the postseason.

“I wish there was an easy answer to say, ‘It’s always 32,’ for example, but it’s not always the same number because every season is different,” he said. “One might think, ‘Don’t you have the same number of schools each year? Shouldn’t the number of games always be the same?’ Well, not always, because in recent years, some teams are making the move to 8-man football, so that takes a team out of the equation. Some teams are playing schools from other states, and that always affects things. For example, I think Quincy Notre Dame has played more teams this year from Missouri than they have from Illinois, so we look at those out-of-state wins as well.

“It’s not the same from year to year, but it generally is in the 30s somewhere. I won’t go any more specific than that because we don’t ever really know what that number is until we get to this coming Saturday and all the games have been played.”

On that Saturday, once the records and playoff points have been determined for each team, the administrators at the IHSA then work on completing the playoff seedings. Just as is the case with playoff point cutoff total, Knox said there isn’t a hard and fast time at which all the seedings will be completed and the pairings set, as all games must be completed before the final determinations can be made.

“Even if it’s a game in deep southern Illinois between a 1-and-7 team and a 2-and-6 team, some people might think, ‘Why does that game even matter?’,” he said. “It matters to all the opponents on their schedule, because whoever wins that game gives those opponents one more playoff point. So we literally have to wait until all games are finished on Saturday afternoon.

“Last year, we had a game up in the suburbs that had a couple injuries and had to bring the ambulance to the field; that slowed the game down, and then it went to overtime. We were waiting on this one last score so we could put the whole puzzle together, so we hope that doesn’t happen this year.”

Once all 256 playoff teams have been determined, the teams are grouped into eight classes based on enrollment. Because teams with different enrollments can find their way in and out of playoff eligibility from week to week, sometimes schools on the upper or lower border of one of those 32-team enrollment classifications might get bumped to a different class.

“We look at those 256 schools and put them in order from the smallest enrollment to the largest enrollment,” Knox said. “The smallest 32 are in Class 1A, the next 32 are in 2A, et cetera.”

Lincoln, with a listed enrollment of 814.50 according to the IHSA web site, currently sits as the No. 29 team in Class 4A.

Knox said that, once the 32 teams in each class have been determined, each team is placed into a north or south region (with 16 teams in each region) based on the location of the school. The exception occurs in Classes 7A and 8A, where pairings are determined strictly by teams’ seedings in their 32-team class.

“For 7A and 8A, we don’t do that [place the schools into north and south regions] because 99 percent of those schools are up in the suburbs,” he said. “They just play a straight 1 through 32 where No. 32 plays at the No. 1 seed, No. 31 plays at No. 2, no matter where.

“In 1A through 6A, we have a lot more teams scattered all over the state, so we pick the 16 teams in the north and the 16 teams in the south; from there, No. 16 plays at No. 1, No. 15 plays at No. 2, et cetera.”

Knox said the dividing line for which teams are placed in the north or south region can fluctuate based on the teams qualifying.

“Some people might look at our map and go, ‘How in the world is so-and-so in the north or is so-and-so in the south?’,” he said. “Every year, the map looks a little bit different based on which teams have qualified. Sometimes that north-south line is drawn just north of Bloomington, and sometimes it’s drawn just south of Springfield; every class is a little bit different.”

Knox said the IHSA breaks down the state into regions for a number of reasons.

“Our board of directors doesn’t feel like it’s a good tournament to have a team driving from the Kentucky border all the way to the Wisconsin border for a Round 1 playoff football game,” he said. “We want fans to be able to go and enjoy the game, and we know a lot of fans aren’t going to make that trip if it’s a six-hour trip from north to south.

“Many years ago, they did just seed the entire state one through 32. That was 20-something years ago, and I think the board of directors at that time realized that’s not the best way to do this football postseason. We don’t do that in any other sport; with basketball regionals, softball regionals, et cetera, everything is pretty close to home for the most part. Lincoln wouldn’t play a basketball regional against somebody from Rockford or somebody from Carbondale, so we wouldn’t do that in football either.”

Knox, who served as athletic director at LCHS prior to working for the IHSA, said a team qualifying for the playoffs in football can serve as a rallying point for other teams and the school in general.

“As a former AD there for 11 years, I think it’s really exciting for the Railers to be in this position and thinking about a playoff possibility,” he said. “That would be fantastic for the school and the entire community.

“Football playoffs seem to really energize a school and a community, and sometimes it gives the school a good kickstart and energy for the rest of the school year. I don’t know how to really describe it, but it just happens in some schools. It just kind of triggers the next teams to be good and everybody wants that success. It’s fun to see that excitement get rolling at certain schools that haven’t been here in a long, long time.”

Knox said that, for Lincoln and all playoff-eligible schools, being in contention for a postseason berth is the culmination of considerable efforts by all involved.

“I know how much effort it takes to get to this point and to even be considered for the playoffs,” he said. “It makes it all worth it when you can get that playoff qualification; you print the T-shirts and the sweatshirts, and maybe you play somebody who you’ve already played this year, or maybe you play somebody brand new who you’ve never played before. That’s what makes it really fun.”

The IHSA football playoff pairings are scheduled to be announced October 21 at 8 PM on a playoff pairings television show. The show will air live locally on WCIX-49.1 (MyNet) Champaign/
Springfield/Decatur. The show will air on a tape-delay basis at 9 PM on WEEK-25.3 (CW) Bloomington-Normal/Peoria; broadcast is delayed on all CW stations due to a previous CW agreement to air ACC football. The pairings show will also be broadcast on the IHSA website and NFHS Network. Shortly after they are announced on the broadcast, pairings will be posted on the IHSA website as well as on the IHSA feed on X (formerly Twitter).

[Loyd Kirby]