It's win-or-go home time in the IHSA football season and 19 area teams have reached the promised land of the playoffs.
First round games kick off on Friday evening and Saturday across the state, with 11 squads in Central Illinois earning the higher seeds and the right to host in those games.
Class 2A has the highest concentration of area teams with six and local matchups between Dee-Mack and Farmington, plus Bloomington Central Catholic at Tri-Valley lead the way. Class 6A features four area squads in Bloomington, Washington, Normal West and Dunlap who will all encounter rigorously-tested teams from the Chicago suburbs.
Elsewhere, Peoria Notre Dame will head south for an intriguing Class 4A matchup with perennial powerhouse Rochester, Pekin hosts a strong Lincoln Way-West squad and many other key matchups dot the schedule.
Clutch Sports Media will provide three free live, video broadcasts as our WMBD Games of the Week, starting with Palos Heights (Shepard) at Washington and Country Club Hills (Hillcrest) at Peoria High. On Saturday, the red-hot 7-2 Normal West Wildcats go up against Chicago Simeon, who boasts Division-I talent. All games will be streamed live on ciproud.com.
Our staff has made their predictions for all 17 playoff games in the area, along with their season records listed below. Broadcasters for our broadcasted games are ineligible to pick winners for the games that they are broadcasting and will pick the winner of an extra game(s) instead.