Friday and Saturday featured 128 high school football games in Illinois, and most of them turned out as expected. And by “as expected,” we mean our computer models gave the losing team less than a 75 percent chance of winning.
There were additional “upsets” in terms of the how the IHSA seeded the brackets, but we base our list of surprise victories on our own mathematical models. In all six cases, however, the Illinois High School Association had also seeded the losing team higher in the bracket.
Of the 23 teams that had a No. 1 seed going in, Batavia in Class 7A and Eastland-Pearl City in Class 2A were the only two teams to lose their Round 1 games.
Only four of the 23 No. 2 teams lost in Round 1. In addition to Chester, listed below as one of our surprises, Centralia in Class 5A, Marist in Class 8A, and North Chicago in Class 4A also lost.
Our computer predicted that Marist would lose to Lyons Township and North Chicago would lose to Evergreen Park, although both games had less than a 70 percent chance of going that way.
The Jacksonville-Centralia match-up yielded a difference of opinion between our two models. The model that puts more weight on the strength of the schedule had Centralia with a 60 percent chance of winning; the model that puts more weight on the team’s own performance had Jacksonville with about the same odds of winning. Either way, we can’t count this as a surprise victory for Jacksonville.
(7A) Downers Grove North d. Batavia, 38-26
No. 8 Downers Grove North (5-4) knocked out No. 1 Batavia (9-0). The odds were a little under 90 percent in favor of Batavia.
(6A) Notre Dame (Niles) d. Grayslake North, 46-27
The first playoff game in school history for No. 3 Grayslake North (8-1) should have been a win over No. 14 Notre Dame (5-4) from Niles. But a star running back dialed in. The odds were 80 percent in Grayslake North’s favor in this game.
(5A) Tinley Park d. Westinghouse College Prep, 27-23
No. 13 Tinley Park (5-4) defeated No. 4 Westinghouse College Prep (6-3) in the closing minutes. Our mathematical model gave Westinghouse an 82 percent chance of winning this football game.
(3A) Monticello d. Nokomis Coop, 45-26
No. 5 Monticello (7-2) downed No. 4 Nokomis Coop (8-1) in a game that our computer said was 75 percent in Nokomis’s favor.
(2A) Althoff Catholic d. Chester, 42-24
In perhaps the biggest upset of Round 1, both in terms of IHSA seeding and our mathematical model, No. 2 Chester (9-0) fell to No. 15 Althoff (6-3), mostly in the third quarter. Chester had better than a 95 percent chance of winning, based on our model.
(2A) Orion d. Eastland-Pearl City Coop, 31-24
No. 1 Eastland-Pearl City (9-0) just missed against No. 8 Orion (5-4). Again, our mathematical model gave Eastland-Pearl City a 90 percent chance of winning.
