What we learned in Week 7: Race to the middle of the pack has many entrants

Losses stacking up for just about everyone

Joliet Catholic's Jeremy Johnson (22) sacks Brother Rice's Ryan Hartz (17) in overtime on Friday, Oct. 07, 2022, at Joliet Memorial Stadium. (Dean Reid for Shaw Media)

A couple of facts before we begin:

• Just 251 teams enter Week 8 with records above the .500 mark.

• 133 teams already can’t reach traditional playoff eligibility (five wins). That’s 33 percent of the teams eligible for playoff consideration.

• After weeks of losing undefeated teams by droves, just four teams dropped from the list this week, leaving 41 unbeaten teams. Eight of those 41 (Mount Carmel, Loyola, White County, Johnston City, Simeon, Shelbyville, Decatur St. Teresa and Morgan Park) have one game remaining with a fellow undefeated team.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest storylines of Week 7:

CCL/ESCC jumble adds more congestion

Only three of the 22 teams in the extremely deep CCL/ESCC have five or more losses on the season.

That speaks to the strength of the conference and to its depth.

But a possibly problem for the league’s membership is the losses that have almost been evenly distributed.

While there are still two undefeated team (Mount Carmel and Loyola), there are exactly none that have one loss and just seven with less than three losses.

Big winners this week? That would have to be Brother Rice (4-3) and Fenwick (4-3).

Brother Rice’s victory over Joliet Catholic afforded it a little bit of breathing room in regards to its playoff status. A loss would have dropped the Crusaders back below the .500 mark with a game looming against Marist in Week 9. If the Crusaders get past Marian Catholic in Week 8 they’ll get to a playoff-eligible standard prior to the Marist game instead of having it be a win-and-get-in situation.

Fenwick’s victory over St. Patrick was fairly critical as well. The Friars will obtain playoff eligibility in Week 8 as they will collect a forfeit win to reach 5-3. Fenwick faces St. Ignatius in Week 9. Getting to that five-win mark was more substantial for Fenwick than most CCL/ESCC schools if four-win teams are indeed needed to fill the playoff field. The Friars don’t have a treasure trove of playoff points like most teams in the CCL/ESCC as its three nonconference opponents have combined for just five total wins.

Middle of the pack teams are in full scramble mode

Several conferences are finding situations where the middle of the pack is on the verge of showdown matchups that will determine whether or not playoff berths or earned.

The bottom half of the DuKane Conference is certainly one of those situations. Glenbard North currently stands on the brink of playoff status elimination at 3-4 and has remaining games against conference front runner St. Charles North (6-1) and finish the season against Wheaton Warrenville South (2-5). Unless Glenbard North sweeps, it will have to hope four-win teams are needed to fill the field.

Wheaton Warrenville South’s only hope is the four-win scenario as its 8-7 loss to Wheaton North on Friday dropped it into the five-loss group.

Other conferences where a bid might be in jeopardy are the Fox Valley and the Upstate Eight.

Burlington Central’s recent surge has knocked several teams into the five-loss group in the league, but the Rockets (3-4) needs to pull one more upset over Cary-Grove (3-4) to keep themselves in the mix.

The Upstate Eight Conference’s issue is a little more complex.

Three teams have separated themselves in South Elgin (7-0), Glenbard South (6-1) and Glenbard East (6-1) and have already clinched playoff berths by winning at least six games.

But the identity of the fourth-place team is still very much up in the air, and while a locked conference usually produces five bids, there’s a scenario where the Upstate Eight could only produce three if the remaining seven teams somehow spilt the wins in a way that they are all between two and four victories.

It’s not a certainty, but nothing can be totally dismissed based on the erratic results of the league so far .

Surprising playoff clinchers

There’s quite a few teams that have interesting stories among the 96 teams that have already clinched playoff berths.

Seneca is the only one of the remaining 41 undefeated teams that was not a playoff qualifier last season.

Teams that certainly are surprising to see among the list of teams that have clinched with still two weeks to play are Wood River-East Alton, Noble Street/ITW Speer, Lane, Collinsville and Elk Grove Village.