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The 2025 high school football season is still several months 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, not every team qualifies for the playoffs. Instead, 224 teams qualify for the playoffs. 

The 2025 season will mark a significant change in how the playoffs are determined and administered, as the WIAA passed a proposal that utilizes the Wisconsin Football Playoff Matrix to determine points for each win a team achieves, and also has pre-determined divisional placement for the first time ever in high school football.

All teams that provide an 11-player schedule are split equally into seven divisions. The WIAA will wait to release OFFICIAL playoff assignments until August 1st, in the event teams drop their programs before then and the total number of teams (and how they are divided equally amongst divisions) changes.

The WIAA is also working through scenarios on how to handle teams that have canceled seasons, and if or how they should be assigned to divisions.

We have received the full list of teams, and have created an UNOFFICIAL divisional projection, though please note this can and may change after August 1st when the WIAA releases its official assignments. This projection will allow teams to get a better handle on where they may fall in the meantime.

We also have provided a list of the divisional cutlines going back to 2008 to show where those lines have been in the past and how they've changed in recent years, and may be impacted by this new playoff procedure.

Competitive Balance and Tournament Performance Factor will still apply. As a reminder, for any division that has a team or teams elevated, a corresponding number of teams from the higher division will be moved down in order to balance out the number of teams in each division. Teams that have accumulated any TPF points in the previous three years cannot be moved down due to another team's elevation; in such an event, the next lowest enrollment team in that division without TPF points in the previous three years will be moved down instead.

The following teams met the threshold for elevation from their originally assigned divisions or the division they accumulated points in:

Aquinas*
Badger
Bay Port^
Catholic Memorial*
Columbus*
Edgar
Grantsburg
Kimberly^
Notre Dame
Rice Lake*
Stratford*
Wrightstown

* - Indicates teams was promoted in 2024 and will remain in higher division in 2025

^ - Indicates team is in Division 1 and cannot be further promoted

A few additional notes:

• Team enrollments for co-ops include the enrollment totals for all schools involved in the co-op.
• Enrollments for the Illinois schools that are part of co-ops in the Wisconsin playoffs are included for all applicable teams.
• If the total number of teams is not equally divisible by seven divisions, any remaining teams will be added to the largest divisions first (the largest divisions will have more teams than the smallest divisions). This year, there is one remainder, so Division 1 will have 53 teams while the other divisions will have 52.
• If two or more schools have the same enrollment, the previous year's enrollment will be used as the tiebreaker for the sake of determining divisions. On the D4/5 cutline, Richland Center and Wrightstown tied at an enrollment of 412; using last year's enrollment, Richland Center is up to D4 due to an enrollment of 404 last year compared to Wrightstown's 399; however, Wrightstown is elevated to D4 by TPF points, so Richland Center winds up in D5 anyways.