IHSA Football Bracketology: Bracket projections for all eight classes heading in to Week 9
Projecting the IHSA football brackets is never an easy task. One domino falling in a small-school game in southern Illinois could have an effect on the larger classifications. However, forecasting the field and seeds gets slightly easier heading into Week 9 with the range of possibilities being cut in half from Week 8.
A new wrinkle this week is the Chicago Public League released matchups for all of its teams in Week 9. Those matchups were previously not known until the conclusion of Week 8. With that in hand, many CPL teams’ projections have changed and all of them received a boost in playoff points (a.k.a opponents wins) now that each team has a Week 9 opponent. Some matchups feature two 2-6 teams facing off with the winner guaranteed to make it into the playoffs, thus shrinking the number of 2-7 teams in the projected field.
Ten teams — namely Monmouth United, Bureau Valley, Pleasant Hill, Chicago Dunbar, Chicago Schurz, Aurora Central Catholic, Chicago Amundsen, Des Plaines Maine West, Chicago Mather and Thornton Fractional South — are now projected to make it into the field after not being the projected field last week.
The number of 2-7 teams projected to make it in has dropped from 20 to 12. The opponents wins cutoff for 2-7 teams is those that are currently at 38 heading into Week 9. Dee-Mack, Crystal Lake South and Rockford East are the last teams in the projected field as all three are ahead of Virden North Mac in a tiebreaker that went all the way down to points allowed to teams that qualified for the playoffs. That is the last tiebreaker method used ahead of a coin flip by the IHSA.
Below are projections for how the brackets in all eight classes will shake out, but will likely change slightly after Week 9’s games. Breakdowns of each team in the Clutch Sports Media coverage area that is projected to make the field are also included.
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