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PROJECTED Football Playoff Qualifying Field heading into Week 8

10/07/2015, 3:15pm CDT
By Travis Wilson

It is that time of the year again, where I feel like an accountant on April 15th trying to crunch numbers and figure out the good and bad news for people. 

I have predicted every game for the last two weeks of the high school football season, thereby determining final conference records for all teams. With these predictions, I can put together a PROJECTED playoff field. To see full WIAA Playoff Regulations, please visit here.

Please note the emphasis on PROJECTED, as things can and will change between now and the end of the final game next Friday night. Even one or two games going differently amongst the 400+ I projected could throw things off. This is meant to give an idea of where teams may fall in divisional placement as we head to the busy final two weeks.

Based on my projections, 215 teams finish with a conference record of .500 or better. The 216th team in the playoffs is Hurley, technically an Independent this year, who gets in thanks to securing at least six overall victories. 

That leaves 8 spots available for teams that finish under .500 in conference. The first tiebreaker, something adjusted last year, is conference winning percentage. This gives an advantage in the tiebreaker to teams from 10-school conferences that play 9 league games. A 4-5 league record (0.444 conference winning percentage) is better than a 3-4 league record (0.429 conference winning percentage).

So the first two spots for sub-.500 teams go to Big Eight teams Sun Prairie and Janesville Parker, who I project to go 4-5 in league play.

Now, 6 spots are left. A total of 22 teams went 3-4 in league play and tie for those 6 spots: 

Clear Lake 
Eau Claire Memorial 
Fennimore 
Frederic 
Hartford 
Independence/Gilmanton 
Kenosha Christian Life 
Kenosha Tremper 
Lake Holcombe/Cornell 
Manawa 
Martin Luther 
Milwaukee Lutheran 
Mukwonago 
Onalaska 
Pittsville 
Prescott 
Roncalli 
Spooner 
Sussex Hamilton 
Union Grove 
Wabeno/Laona 
Wausaukee 

To figure out which 6 of those 22 get into the postseason, we follow WIAA criteria. First is the combined winning percentage of defeated conference opponents, conference games only. Basically, it rewards teams that have beaten some of the better teams in their league. Most of the 22 teams got wins over the bottom three teams in their leagues. The team whose defeated conference opponents had the most league wins is Onalaska with 6, thanks in large part to a victory over West Salem, who I project to go 4-3 in league play. Clear Lake, Frederic, Lake Holcombe/Cornell, and Wausaukee have a number of 4, and are in. 

That leaves just one spot for the remaining 17 teams. We follow the WIAA criteria to head-to-head result, but since all teams did not play each other, we skip that. Next is result versus conference champion, but none of the 17 teams beat the league champion in their conference.

We head to "Defeated opponents (conference wins only) overall winning percentage." Similar to the criteria applied earlier, this gives teams credit for beating the better teams on their league schedule, but looks at overall win percentage. Based on this criteria, Mukwonago is the final team in the playoffs. Mukwonago's league wins are over Kettle Moraine, Waukesha North, and Waukesha South, who posted solid overall records.

Now that we know the 224 teams PROJECTED to be in the playoffs, we can break them into divisions. The full PROJECTED divisional placements are below.

* Please note that according to our projections, there is a tie on the D5/6 cutline between three teams with enrollment numbers of 258: Grantsburg, Pardeeville, Unity. The tiebreaker in this instance is the actual Third Friday of September enrollment count for 2015, though that information is not publicly known at this time. Therefore, we don't know which of those teams would end up in D5 and which would slide to D6. WSN has reached out to the coaches and athletic directors at those schools to request their Third Friday count in order to better be able to project a possible tiebreaker. We will update accordingly when we are provided the information.

PROJECTED Football Playoff Qualifying Field

Team Enrollment PROJECTED Division
Kenosha Indian Trail  2510 1
Arrowhead  2257 1
Sun Prairie  2204 1
Green Bay Preble  2184 1
Marquette University  2166 1
Stevens Point  2139 1
Racine Horlick  2132 1
Middleton  2112 1
Fond du Lac  2100 1
Oak Creek  2087 1
Milwaukee Riverside  2079 1
Milw. Morse-Marshall  2041 1
Madison Memorial  1924 1
Bay Port  1812 1
Appleton North  1800 1
Milwaukee Hamilton  1735 1
D.C. Everest  1660 1
Milwaukee Bradley Tech  1648 1
Muskego  1618 1
Appleton East  1617 1
Madison East  1610 1
Mukwonago  1594 1
Janesville Parker  1571 1
Oconomowoc  1546 1
Verona  1511 1
Kimberly  1494 1
Milwaukee King  1481 1
Appleton West  1465 1
Franklin  1453 1
Madison La Follette  1453 1
Milw. Washington  1445 1
Badger  1433 1
Germantown  1399 2
Chippewa Falls  1391 2
Menomonee Falls  1376 2
De Pere  1346 2
Superior  1341 2
Brookfield Central  1324 2
Greenfield  1308 2
Watertown  1303 2
Brookfield East  1285 2
Homestead  1282 2
Oshkosh North  1220 2
Green Bay Southwest  1194 2
Waukesha West  1178 2
Burlington  1171 2
Waunakee  1163 2
Cedarburg  1160 2
Holmen  1152 2
Wilmot  1124 2
Hortonville  1098 2
Oregon  1094 2
Milwaukee Bay View  1094 2
Waterford  1090 2
Wauwatosa West  1056 2
Stoughton  1055 2
Ashwaubenon  1048 2
DeForest  1043 2
Milton  1016 2
Whitefish Bay  995 2
Menasha  992 2
Menomonie  984 2
Slinger  968 2
Tomah  938 2
Greendale  937 3
Monona Grove  925 3
New Richmond  916 3
Mount Horeb/Barneveld  882 3
Merrill  881 3
Onalaska  868 3
New Berlin Eisenhower  848 3
West De Pere  845 3
La Crosse Logan  832 3
Reedsburg  820 3
Plymouth  813 3
Antigo  812 3
Pewaukee  812 3
Whitnall  793 3
Notre Dame  786 3
Wisconsin Lutheran  727 3
Rice Lake  724 3
Seymour  710 3
Waupaca  689 3
Catholic Memorial  664 3
Evansville/Albany  661 3
Mosinee  650 3
Medford  648 3
Luxemburg-Casco  641 3
Jefferson  636 3
Hayward  626 3
Milwaukee Career & Tech. Ed.  622 3
Kewaskum  611 3
Xavier  594 3
Edgerton  580 3
West Salem  567 3
Saint Francis  561 3
Freedom  559 4
Fox Valley Lutheran  555 4
Berlin  544 4
Sheboygan Falls  540 4
East Troy  535 4
Osceola  534 4
Black River Falls  524 4
Big Foot  520 4
Lodi  515 4
Mauston  510 4
Two Rivers  509 4
Somerset  495 4
Little Chute  489 4
Kohler/Sheb. Luth./Christian  481 4
Winneconne  473 4
Beloit Turner  457 4
Mont/Princeton/Green Lake  455 4
Kiel  454 4
Northwestern  453 4
Tomahawk  452 4
River Valley  451 4
Wrightstown  446 4
Brodhead/Juda  440 4
Nekoosa  434 4
Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau  424 4
Altoona  424 4
Northland Pines  420 4
Omro  409 4
Wautoma  404 4
Columbus  400 4
Saint Croix Central  393 4
University School  387 4
Peshtigo  380 5
Clinton  377 5
Spencer/Columbus Catholic  369 5
Bloomer  364 5
Southern Door  363 5
Marshall  359 5
New Glarus/Monticello  355 5
Cedar Grove-Belgium  350 5
Lakeside Lutheran  350 5
New Holstein  338 5
Brookfield Academy  332 5
Prairie du Chien  331 5
Arcadia  329 5
Winnebago Lutheran  329 5
Elk Mound  328 5
Bonduel  326 5
Oostburg  324 5
Racine St. Catherine's  320 5
Kenosha St. Joseph  317 5
Saint Croix Falls  317 5
Kewaunee  312 5
Shoreland Lutheran  311 5
Durand  306 5
Amherst  303 5
Stratford  300 5
Stanley-Boyd  298 5
Lancaster  296 5
Cameron  296 5
Waterloo  279 5
Chetek-Weyerhaeuser  278 5
Mondovi  261 5
Grantsburg* 258 5
Unity* 258 6
Pardeeville* 258 6
Dodgeland  255 6
Fall Creek  250 6
Cuba City  246 6
Saint Mary Catholic  246 6
Northern Elite  245 6
Lake Country Lutheran  244 6
Shiocton  244 6
Marathon  241 6
Iola-Scandinavia  239 6
Regis  238 6
Crandon  238 6
Markesan  235 6
Saint Mary's Springs  229 6
Lake Holcombe/Cornell  224 6
Pecatonica/Argyle  222 6
Mineral Point  218 6
Melrose-Mindoro  216 6
Whitehall  215 6
Ozaukee  215 6
Iowa-Grant  214 6
Edgar  211 6
Darlington  209 6
Cochrane-Fountain City  208 6
Abbotsford  204 6
Elmwood/Plum City  204 6
Spring Valley  202 6
Coleman  198 6
Athens  197 6
Hurley  197 6
Hilbert/Stockbridge  194 6
Catholic Central  181 7
New Lisbon  179 7
Randolph  176 7
Gillett  174 7
Bangor  170 7
Eleva-Strum  170 7
Loyal  169 7
De Soto  167 7
Flambeau  167 7
McDonell Central  166 7
Clear Lake  166 7
Wild Rose  163 7
Benton/Scales Mound 159 7
Assumption  155 7
Cashton  155 7
Wausaukee  154 7
Johnson Creek  152 7
Frederic  152 7
Owen-Withee  149 7
Hillsboro  148 7
Rio  140 7
Pepin/Alma  137 7
Clayton  126 7
Almond-Bancroft  120 7
Suring  119 7
Port Edwards  117 7
Potosi  113 7
Ithaca  112 7
Cambria-Friesland 103 7
Black Hawk  102 7
Weston  89 7
Cassville  78 7

For the latest and most up to date football news and recruiting information, follow Travis on Twitter @travisWSN. Email story ideas, recruiting info, etc. to Travis at travis(at)wissports.net.

Tag(s): News Archive  News  Travis Wilson  Football Playoffs