IHSA football playoffs expanding by 128 teams

A proposal to expand the IHSA football playoffs by 128 teams was passed by a schoolwide membership vote, 377-252 (with 96 abstentions).

The proposal, submitted by Monticello High School, will change the landscape of IHSA football season in a number of ways.

First and foremost, the playoff field will be expanded by 128 teams beginning in the 2026 season, increasing the field of qualifiers from 256 teams to 384. The field has been at 256 teams since the 2001 season.

The eight classifications will remain, but instead of 32 teams in each field it will become 48-team fields. The highest 16 seeds in each bracket (1 through 16 in Class 7A-8A and the top eight seeds in the north and south brackets in Class 1A through 6A) will receive byes into the second round.

The playoff season will now encompass six weeks of the season and will still conclude on Thanksgiving weekend.

The regular season will still include nine games, but the beginning of the season will start one week earlier to accommodate for the extra week of playoffs that need to be scheduled. This adjustment will eliminate the Week 0 scrimmage week and will allow for just 10 dates to get nine practices in the preseason to meet the previously established state acclimatization practices.

All other IHSA standards for setting the field will be retained including multipliers, waivers and teams electing to voluntarily “play up.” Teams will be placed in the field and seeded the same way they have been before and seeded first by total of wins and second by number of playoff points (total wins by a team’s opponents).

By utilizing data from previous seasons, all nine, eight, seven, six, five, four and three-win teams will now make the playoffs. A number of two-win teams will also make the playoffs and that will vary from season to season.

In the case of the 2025 data, 32 2-7 teams would have made the field with a minimum of 42 playoff points required to make the field as a two-win team.