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Enrollment numbers & unofficial divisional projections for the 2020 football season

06/30/2020, 2:30pm CDT
By Travis Wilson

The 2020 high school football season is just a few weeks away, but it's never too early to start thinking about the playoffs. Enrollment numbers determine divisional placement in the WIAA postseason, but unlike any other sport, football does not have pre-determined divisions at the start of the year. Instead, 224 teams qualify for the playoffs in various ways, and those qualifiers are then broken into 7 divisions of 32 teams each.

The WIAA has released the enrollment figures that will be used in determining this year's playoff divisional placements. These numbers include charter schools as well as co-op figures. Based on those figures and the divisional cutlines from past seasons, we've advanced a very unofficial and very early list of divisional placement for all the teams in the state.

To determine the PROJECTED divisional cutlines, we took the average of each division's cutline from the last three years. We tweaked this to account for cutlines increasing over the last several seasons, especially last year. We weighted the most recent season more heavily in determining the average.

Remember, these are just projections and official cutlines and divisional placements will NOT be determined until the final game of the regular season is completed.

We also have provided a list of the divisional cutlines for the past 12 seasons to show where those lines have been in the past and how they've changed in recent years.


Past Divisional Cutlines

Division 2020* 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
D1 Low Enrollment 1444 1492 1360 1422 1449 1445 1418 1421 1389 1301 1331 1360 1405
D2 Low Enrollment 1005 1038 957 966 953 937 932 936 922 841 878 878 919
D3 Low Enrollment 591 628 543 540 571 561 528 531 544 504 508 513 557
D4 Low Enrollment 408 423 398 367 397 393 345 358 362 352 359 336 353
D5 Low Enrollment 286 299 271 261 290 279 245 266 253 255 252 238 252
D6 Low Enrollment 197 197 197 194 196 202 194 197 200 194 184 181 195
* - Projected

About the Author

Travis Wilson serves as the WisSports.net General Manager, Football Editor, and contributing writer for other parts of the site. Wilson was selected as part of the Sports 40 Under 40 list by Coach & AD Magazine and the National High School Athletic Coaches Association for 2019. The Wisconsin Football Coaches Association (WFCA) named Travis the 2015 recipient of the Dave McClain Distinguished Service Award. He currently serves on the WFCA Executive Board and is a member of the Executive Board of the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association. A graduate of Richland Center High School and Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Travis was a three-sport athlete in high school (football, baseball, basketball), inducted to the Richland Center High School Hall of Fame in 2023, and currently resides in Reedsburg. You can follow him on Twitter at @travisWSN.

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