Great News: Kaneland will be a Class 3A team in 1998

No more worrying all season will Kaneland be 3A or 4A when the playoffs roll around. No more trying to keep on an eye on two divisions of teams. This year for the first ever Kaneland will clearly be a Class 3A team.

This is largely because of the new realignment of the SPC conference. See Two Divisions for Suburban Prairie. Essentially, Kaneland has for the first time in nearly two decades separated itself from the old Little Seven schools leaving most of them in the SPC Red (except for Yorkville) and becoming part of a division that is made up of schools Kaneland's size in the SPC White. See Analyzing the new Divisions for Suburban Prairie.

Last year even though Kaneland's true enrollment number was 619, the Knights football enrollment number ballooned to 798.57, purely because the Knights played larger schools. This happens because the IHSA uses the the average enrollment size of the all the teams a school plays in football, excluding the largest and smallest.

As a result Kaneland had to sweat it out to the last moment, ultimately to find themselves as the last (highest football enrollment number) team to make class 3A.

This year the knights play smaller schools:

Marengo 629 (610)
Sycamore 976 (largest)
Lemont 840 (827)
Evergreen Park 698 (694)
Ridgewood 729 (682)
Yorkville 679 (654)
Elmwood Park 803 (761)
Herscher 700 (727)
Westmont 483 (Smallest)
(Numbers in parentheses are last year's enrollment numbers)

Therefore, this year's football enrollment number is 725. Well below last year's 798.5. Moreover the IHSA made a change to even better the Knights situation by adding yet another equation to the formula. This year they add the football number and the enrollment number together and divide by 2 to get the "Final Football Number". This moves the Knights number even lower (because all the schools they play are larger then Kaneland except Westmont), giving Kaneland a 678.21 final football number which clearly places them in the middle of the 3A class.

An interesting side note is the school sizes are going up an average of about 20 students per school indicating the 798.5 should go up too.

Kaneland's enrollment went from 619 to 631. (Note that all numbers used by the IHSA in a given year are the actual enrollment numbers of the prior year.)

So breath easy Kaneland football fans. In 1998 the Knights are almost assured of a class 3A placement for the playoffs, provided of course they make the playoffs.