Today marks the last weekend of the regular season of high school football in the state of Illinois. The grueling nine week schedule ends for some schools but the intensity picks up for 256 schools who qualify for the playoffs.

High school football in Illinois consists of eight classes which are broken down by the size of the school. Class 1A consists mostly of small schools. Class 8A consists of schools with enrollments of 2500 students. The majority of these schools tend to be located all in the Chicago area but there are a few schools located in the St. Louis area.

The Springfield area hosts a wide variety of schools. These schools fall in Classes 1A to Class 5A. The enrollment for Class 5A consists of 1060 to 1473 students. The biggest school in the Springfield area is Chatham Glenwood with an enrollment of 1392.

Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin High School is the big powerhouse in Central Illinois. The Cyclones have won 3 out of the last 4 state titles in Classes 5 and 6A. Sacred Heart-Griffin has an actual school enrollment of 820 students but the Illinois High School Association (the governing board of high school extra cirricular activities in the state) implements the multiplier rule in 2005. The multiplier rule was passed to force private and parochial schools such as Sacred Heart-Griffin and Joliet Catholic to move up in their competition level. These schools can draw students from outside their traditional school boundaries usually up to 30 miles away.

Many of these private and parochial schools have won multiple state championships in football and other sports. Thus, it led to a less competitive balance for the public schools. If you visit the IHSA website, www.ihsa.org, and look under football championships, you will see which schools own the majority of championships.

High school football in the state of Illinois is very competitive. Some well known NFL stars have competed in the state. Donovan McNabb led his school to state title. If anyone follows the IHSA football playoffs, you hear some of the names of players from these schools playing next year at Ohio State, Notre Dame, the University of Illinois, just to name a few.

Fans truly support their schools. The support of the schools reminds you of Friday Night Lights. High school football is big business in the state. The state finals are played at Memorial Stadium on the University of Illinois campus. The crowds are very energetic at the state finals, which are played during the Thanksgiving weekend.

High school football is very enjoyable whether you live in the state of Illinois or anywhere throughout the country. Please support your school no matter what their win loss record. Many of these student athletes may not play on Saturday's or Sunday's down the road but support their effort and your local community.

Update to the article (November 9, 2009) - The IHSA State Football playoffs have reached the quarterfinals for all eight classes. The playoffs began with two hundred fifty six schools and now just sixty-four schools remain fighting for a state title. Springfield area schools such as Concord Triopia, Jacksonville Routt, Pana, Rochester and Sacred Heart - Griffin are still alive.