What we learned in Week 11: Fireworks begin in the second round

The opening week of the IHSA football playoffs left a lot to be desired for those who were hoping for fantastic finishes and close contests from the postseason.

Round 2 made up for all those who felt aggrieved by the less than exciting opening round. Overtime games abounded, including a four-OT instant classic between Moline and Yorkville, and although there were still a few runaways, they were much less the norm than the previous week.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest storylines of the postseason’s second round:

NUIC a dominating small-school force

It was a cliche to state at the start of the postseason that the road to the Class 1A state championship would have to go through the Northwest Upstate Illini Conference.

Now it is a fact.

All four of the conference entrants (Lena-Winslow, Forreston, Dakota and Fulton) won second-round matchups, which leaves the conference with all four spots in the northern side of the Class 1A bracket and a guarantee that a representative of the conference will be playing for the state title in Champaign.

Those who remember state final history shouldn’t be surprised by this development. Ten of the past 11 Class 1A championships have had a representative from the conference, with the past five champions coming from the NUIC.

Since 2010, only one 1A final has been without representation from the conference, as Arcola defeated Stark County in 2015.

It makes one wonder how things would have shaken down had the bracket been seeded 1 to 32.

The NUIC wasn’t the only conference that continues to leave its mark on the field.

The CCL/ESCC went 8-3 in the second round, with one of those three losses (Joliet Catholic) coming at the hands of one of its brethren (Providence).

The maximum amount of CCL/ESCC teams that can reach the semifinals is six, however, as there are two more games pairing conference rivals in the quarterfinals (Chicago Mount Carmel vs. Brother Rice and St. Ignatius vs. Niles Notre Dame).

The West Suburban Conference Silver Division also advanced three teams to the quarters, with York, Glenbard West and Lyons still alive. The two divisions of the Kishwaukee River/Interstate Eight still have four teams in the mix (Sycamore, Morris, Richmond-Burton and Rochelle).

Those four leagues account for almost 30% of the remaining teams in the playoffs.

Playing the wind

The wind played a factor in almost every second-round playoff game, but teams took different approaches in how to deal with it.

In Palatine’s win over Minooka that was played in a biting wind Friday night, the Pirates attacked through the air with no resolve.

Other coaches were taking timeouts to ensure their punter would have chance to punt with the wind rather than against it.

But perhaps one of the most extreme nods to the wind came in a 6A quarterfinal matchup between Crete-Monee and Simeon. Facing the proposition of punting into the wind out of his own end zone, Crete punter Joshua Franklin took what might have been perceived as a crazy risk based on what he saw to run a fake punt.

It led to one of the most fantastic postseason plays of the season to date, as Franklin ran the fake the length of the field for a touchdown. It also helped cement Crete-Monee’s place in the quarterfinals, as it was a key play in knocking off the previously undefeated Warriors 35-12.

By the numbers

Remaining playoff team records:

• Obviously, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for true Cinderella stories, but there are a few.

15th-seeded Olympia (3A) is the lowest remaining seed in any of the classes, and the other six remaining teams that have four losses entering the quarterfinals are all part of a short list of schools that have defeated two higher seeds in reaching this point.

• For all the talk of the depth of the Class 8A bracket, no team seeded in the lower half of the draw is still alive. Another classification that is often known to produce chaotic results in regard to seed, 5A, also remained remarkably stable with only one double-digit seed still alive in Nazareth (No. 11).

• It was a bad day to be a defending state champion in Round 2. Joliet Catholic (4A), Wilmington (2A) and Wheaton North (7A) saw their quests to defend come to an end. Only Lena-Winslow (1A) and Byron (3A) still have a chance to be a repeat state champion.

• Perhaps the hardest result of Round 2 to parse was Mascoutah’s 55-42 win over Highland in the Class 5A draw. Highland and Mascoutah played in Week 8 in the regular season, and Highland collected a 56-0 victory.