Does home field even matter in the IHSA football playoffs?

Let’s talk about home-field advantage.

Does it even matter in the IHSA football playoffs?

Like with basketball, baseball and many of the other team sports, football doesn’t follow the “top team gets the home game” rule of thinking. At least not after the first round of the postseason.

Instead, after the first round, the team with the fewest number of home playoff games gets to host. If both teams hosted the same number of times, the higher seed gets the game.

Every year the rule comes under fire for not rewarding the top teams, especially in matchups where competing schools are on opposite ends of the state. Why work for a 9-0 regular-season record when it doesn’t even guarantee home cooking like in the NFL and elsewhere?

But I’m not sure that argument holds water. Not when compared to a sport like basketball where top seeds are voted into that status by sectional coaches. And then the top seeds remain at the whim of IHSA assignments to dedicated regional sites.

That’s a bad system in a sport where teams usually play better at home.

I don’t think sites matter as much in football. At the high school level, the better team almost always wins no matter where the game is played.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s much better to stay at home in any postseason competition, football included. There’s nothing quite like being in your own locker room, maintaining the usual routine, eating your normal pregame food.

But because football is a numbers game, winning depends on more strength, speed, skill and depth. The energy of being at home may carry you through a handful of key plays, but the better team typically finds a way to win.

IHSA football is also different because of its playoff seeding process. Coaches don’t determine seeds. It’s a formula of ranking teams based first on their number of wins, and then by strength of schedule as a tiebreaker between teams with the same record.

It’s possible to see an unbeaten No. 1 seed with a horrible schedule playing a No. 32 seed with a 5-4 record and a brutally tough schedule. And guess what … that No. 32 seed may just win the opening-round game.

For years I’ve believed football seeds are overrated. It’s all about individual matchups and the playoff draw as a whole. The IHSA’s rules about hosting playoff games actually negate the effect of seeds because everyone gets a shot at home as long as you stay alive.

Granted, you haven’t seen an overwhelming number of lower seeds beating higher seeds in the first two rounds of this year’s playoffs. All four top seeds remain in the Class 8A quarterfinals, for example.

But it’s a jumble elsewhere. Only No. 3 St. Charles North remains among the top four 7A seeds, and the average seed among the seven other remaining teams is 15.

Yet there’s Barrington, the second seed in 8A hitting the road to play No. 23 Lockport on Saturday. And there’s fourth-seeded Fremd heading to No. 12 Bolingbrook. And there’s St. Charles North playing at No. 6 Brother Rice.

For many out there — including the friends and family filling the highways this weekend — it makes no sense. The Broncos, Vikings, North Stars and so many other higher seeds should be at home, they say.

They’re all banking on home-field advantage not meaning much in IHSA football.