Only about half the varsity football teams in Illinois qualify for the playoffs, and after the conference champions are selected, the remaining playoff slots are filled by taking the non-champions with the most wins. As a result of the pigeonhole principle, teams that win six games in their nine-game regular season will qualify for the playoffs.
Going into Week 6, 59 teams were undefeated, and nine of them lost their Week 6 games, leaving 50 teams in Illinois high school football with 6 wins. But five of those 50 teams play in conferences that are not eligible to participate in the IHSA playoffs. That leaves 45 teams that have now automatically qualified for the playoffs after two-thirds of the season.
We congratulate these teams on reaching an important milestone. The teams still have between four and eight games left this season, culminating, for the winners, on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving at Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Over the next few days, we’ll be analyzing the Illinois high school football season. Stay tuned.
