Sunday Slam: 5A "Title" Game to Start Football Playoffs Begs for a Better Method of Seeding
Ex-Wheeling Star Dennis Signs with Canadian Football League; Hersey's Svienty Helps North Central Cross Country Continue an Incredible Run
It is quite possible that Nazareth’s 35-28 victory at Prairie Ridge on Saturday afternoon was the Class 5A football championship game. Which would seem to be unheard of in the opening round of the IHSA football postseason.
Prairie Ridge was unbeaten after finishing second in the state in 6A last year and was looking for its fourth state title since 2011 under coach Chris Schremp. The reward for running the table in the Fox Valley Conference might be the most deceptive 4-5 team in state history in Nazareth, the defending 5A champs who have won four titles since 2014 under Tim Racki. The Roadrunners started the season 0-4 against teams with a combined 34-6 record (which included losses by 1 and 2 points) and lost its regular-season finale to 8-2 St. Francis.
Some people will say “you have to beat them eventually,” and while that’s true, it would have been nice to see that happen at Illinois State on Thanksgiving weekend or at least in the semifinals. Naturally, the everlasting debate of public vs. private schools is also in play here, although it’s clear Prairie Ridge didn’t play its best game as it lost 3 fumbles Saturday to match its total for the entire regular season.
If there is one thing the IHSA has been unable to come up with since the state football playoffs started in 1974, it is a way to best set up brackets for all five, six or the current eight classes. For years there was no formula, which led people to wonder exactly how matchups were put together. One could just imagine the conspiracy theories, which absolutely existed, blowing up Twitter/X. There have been different seeding systems and the current one uses a combination of overall record and playoff points (total number of wins of your opponents).
On the surface it seems like a good way of rewarding success and strength of schedule. But Prairie Ridge getting a No. 2 seed in its geographical half of the 5A bracket is an example that it is not. The No. 1 seed was 9-0 Payton and the champion of the Chicago Public League’s White-West Division suffered a 50-0 loss to 4-5 Sterling. Payton did not play outside the Public League in the regular season and one of its wins was by 1 point over Phoenix, which lost its 4A opener 68-0 to Wheaton Academy.
Payton deserves to be congratulated and rewarded for its fantastic season, since the reality is Public League schools don’t have the same facilities or numbers of players and coaches in comparison to the suburban or small-town schools they face. It was part of the ongoing conundrum of the Public League in the football playoffs that was on display again this weekend as its only two wins, by Morgan Park and Dyett, were against other city public schools. In the other 22 matchups it lost by an average score of 49-8 and in nine of those games it was the higher-seeded team.
So is there a better way to seed the eight classes of 32 teams? Could it be done like other team sports where the coaches rank the teams in their sectional to determine the seeding? One advantage those sports have is everyone makes the postseason and schools know where they are headed well in advance of their postseason seeding meetings. In football, some teams don’t know if they are in the playoffs until late Saturday afternoon.
Buffalo Grove was the first 4-5 at-large team to qualify last year (Schaumburg got in at 4-5 in 1989 with the Mid-Suburban South champion’s automatic bid) and this year there were six. Expect that to become more commonplace with a shrinking pool of eligible schools for the playoffs because of small-school consolidations and the growth of 8-man football among small schools. It’s easy to simply say “cut the number of Public League teams eligible to participate in the playoffs,” but there have been teams in recent years who won a state title such as Phillips or have been highly competitive in the postseason.
But we’re also in an age with tremendous technological advantages that could open the door to coaches seeding. Have the regular season end with games on Thursday or Friday so the 256-team field is set and the classes are determined by the time sleep-deprived coaches wake up Saturday morning. Then they can rank the teams in their class, submit them to the IHSA by early afternoon and then the IHSA can reveal the pairings on its annual Saturday night show.
Most likely a team like 4-5 Nazareth would have been seeded higher if coaches were doing the seeding. The same would have probably been true for the 5-4 St. Viator team I saw beat 7-2 Richmond-Burton 14-0 in a 4A opener Friday night. Viator was seeded 12th but played a tough schedule and its victory was not necessarily a real shocker, as the Daily Herald’s Kevin Schmit pointed out in his excellent playoff primer column Friday.
There would obviously be challenges. This is a huge state - which I’ve now experienced first-hand from a number of trips to LSU where my son is a sophomore - of 400-plus miles from places like Zion and East Dubuque at the top to Cairo at the bottom. Can coaches rank schools from places they may have never heard of? Each qualifying team could submit a brief resume so coaches can get a better handle on all the teams they are ranking.
There is no easy solution. But it would seem to be worth a try instead of the current system that has a wide spectrum from too-soon matchups like Prairie Ridge and Nazareth to too many major mismatches that are over before kickoff.
Dennis Heads North of the Border
Former Wheeling football star Amani Dennis signed a contract on Oct. 23 with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The 5-foot-11, 180-pound cornerback just spent two seasons with the Philadelphia Stars of the USFL and had 72 tackles, 17 pass breakups and 5 interceptions. He was a two-time all-CCIW pick at Carthage.
Like many of the aspects of the CFL that seem quirky compared to American football, I haven’t been able to figure out what the signing means for Dennis right now or if this is designed to ensure he’s in the Argonauts’ camp for next year. Toronto just finished the CFL regular season Saturday by tying the league mark for victories with a 16-2 record after a 27-22 win over Ottawa. Toronto will get a first-round bye and play Montreal or Hamilton for the CFL East Division title Nov. 11 with the winner advancing to the Grey Cup on Nov. 19.
Ex-Vernon Hills star DaVaris Daniels, who played at Notre Dame, is in his seventh year in the CFL and leads Toronto in receiving with 52 catches for 1,009 yards and 8 touchdowns.
Three other players with MSL ties that I am aware of played in the CFL. Arlington’s George Bork, who had a Hall of Fame career at Northern Illinois, spent four seasons (1964-67) at quarterback for Montreal and completed 52 percent of his passes for 2,593 yards with 12 touchdowns and 27 interceptions. Bork became a teacher and coach at Prospect and his 1976 boys golf team won a state title.
Arlington grad Steve Conley had a brief tour in the CFL with Hamilton in 1973 where he caught 5 passes for 47 yards and a touchdown. Conley played running back and linebacker in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals and St. Louis Cardinals in 1972 and also played in the World Football League.
Russ Michna, who was a three-sport star at Conant, saw time at quarterback with the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2005-06. Michna was 28-for-56 passing for 367 yards with 3 TDs and 2 INTs. Michna also spent time on the St. Louis Rams roster and had a lot of success in Arena football.
Svienty Continues North Central’s Incredible Run
Max Svienty, a 2020 Hersey graduate, was a key part of the North Central College men’s cross country team extending its incredible run of consecutive College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) titles to 49. Svienty finished the 8K race in second place (24:30.8) behind teammate Braden Nicholson of Olney (24:24.6). North Central just missed a perfect score with 16 points to easily outdistance runner-up Carthage’s 80.
Svienty, a senior, earned first-team all-CCIW honors for the second consecutive year and also received the league’s Elite 26 Award for his work in the classroom. Svienty was an all-state runner who took 20th as a junior to lead Hersey to second as a team in Class 3A in 2018. He finished third in the Mid-Suburban League meet as a senior as the Huskies won their fourth consecutive team title in 2019 and he also earned all-MSL honors as a junior (7th) and sophomore (8th).
Senior Connor Riss (Grayslake North) earned all-CCIW honors for the third time as he finished third in 24:33.3. North Central is ranked No. 1 in the NCAA Division III coaches poll and the program built by the legendary Al Carius, who stepped aside as head coach before the 2020 season, has won 19 national titles.
Millstone Helps Drake Win MVC Soccer Title
Paige Millstone went from a two-time all-MSL and all-area soccer player at Palatine to providing some immediate help as a freshman at Drake.
Millstone, a forward and defender, played 13 minutes in a 3-2 win over Belmont as the Bulldogs (12-3-3 8-1-1) won their seventh Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title and first since 2017 by holding off Belmont 3-2. Millstone has averaged 17.5 minutes in 16 games with 1 assist.
Drake’s 8 MVC wins were its most in program history as it finished with 25 points to get the top seed in the conference tournament and a bye to Thursday’s semifinal in Des Moines. The championship match is Nov. 5. Runner-up Missouri State (7-0-3) had 24 points and also gets a bye to the semifinals.
Drake’s only MVC tournament title and NCAA tournament berth came in 2006 when it lost in the first round to St. Louis University.
Fourth MSL Double Football Perfection
This season saw both MSL football division champions - Hersey in the East and Barrington in the West - finish the regular season at 9-0 for just the fourth time in league history. The other times it happened (with final record):
1975 - Hersey (North, 10-1), Schaumburg (South, 9-1)
2000 - Rolling Meadows (East, 9-1), Schaumburg (West, 9-1)
2016 - Rolling Meadows (East, 11-1), Palatine (West, 12-1)