Pondering the pairings

Updated: May 9, 2012 9:56AM

Like every other coach, John Holecek talks a good game about not looking any farther ahead than the next opponent.

But the Loyola football coach is very much aware of what awaits the Ramblers if they take care of business in the early rounds of the playoffs.

“I know there’s one team that’s really good out there that we’re going to have to face eventually,” Holecek said Saturday afternoon after the Ramblers dominated St. Rita to move to 9-0.

Holecek didn’t name that “one team” but it doesn’t take psychic skills to know he’s talking about Maine South, the club that knocked Loyola out of the state playoffs in the semifinals each of the past two seasons.

They’re on a collision course to meet in that round again, according to the Class 8A pairings released Saturday night. That’s not a good thing, because it’s looking like the Ramblers and Hawks are clearly the two best teams in the state’s biggest class.

Why the state championship can’t match Illinois’ two best teams is a good question. The answer lies in the IHSA’s preference for geographic diversity. Giving schools from all parts of the state an equal chance to get to the final takes priority over getting the best matchup.

In spite of that, interest in the state football playoffs has never been higher. The IHSA web site crashed Saturday night because so many fans went there looking for pairings, even though the brackets were being unveiled on live TV. Yes, the IHSA has a good thing going with the football playoffs. But this showcase event would be even better if the best teams played on the biggest stage.

Maine South coach Dave Inserra, whose teams have played in six state championship games since 2003, can’t quibble about the current system. But even he is ready to go from two brackets of 16 teams in each class to one bracket of 32.

“Especially in the bigger classes from 5A to 8A, there’s so many teams in the Chicago area in the draw,” Inserra said.

Seeding teams from 1 to 32 theoretically could create some longer trips than if the state was divided into northern and southern 16-team brackets. But as Inserra pointed out, this year’s 8A bracket has just one team from outside the Chicago area (Belleville East).

“Ninety-five percent of those games would [involve travel of] two hours or less,” Inserra said.

And they wouldn’t send Loyola to Maine South or vice versa, saving what shapes up as a marquee matchup for the final weeekend. “That’s the fun part,” Inserra said. “You would play teams you wouldn’t usually play.”

Sometimes the IHSA can tweak the pairings to set up the matchup everyone’s looking for. A case in point is this years’s 7A bracket, which separates unbeatens Glenbard West and Lincoln-Way East. But to make that work, the IHSA had to draw the line between the two 16-team brackets through the middle of Wheaton, putting Wheaton Warrenville South in the south and Wheaton North in the north.

If we had 1-32 brackets, that kind of gerrymandering wouldn’t be necessary. And that we could be assured of seeing the real state championship in the last game of the season.

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