Area high school football fans are digging in for a wild and busy week. The wilder and busier it is, the better it is for the teams involved.

This is Week 9, the final week of the regular season. It brings a couple of twists to the routine that teams have been following regularly since practice began in early August.

For one thing, this week's games are mid-week affairs. Most Milwaukee-area teams play on Wednesday; elsewhere in the state, most games will be played on Thursday.

And after the last score is reported Thursday night, WIAA officials will pull a good old all-nighter in their headquarters just south of Stevens Point. They have several tasks to achieve while coaches, players and fans around the state click their refresh buttons, looking for answers -- usually with such tenacity that it crashes the WIAA's servers.

First, the officials will apply the strict and well-defined playoff qualifying criteria to all teams, coming up with a list of the top 224 qualifiers.

Then, they will rank those schools by enrollment, placing the 32 largest schools in Division 1, the next 32 largest in Division 2, and so on until all seven divisions are filled.

Then they will pair the qualifiers in each division into geographical sections, generally grouping the 16 northernmost teams on one side of the bracket and the 16 southernmost schools on the other.

They will seed the top schools -- based generally on nothing other than their conference record and placement -- to fill the brackets, all the way down to the first-round pairings. (One caveat: Teams from the same conference will not be slated to meet in the first round.)

And, finally, they will consult their list of pre-approved playoff host sites to assign locations to each game, with preference given to the higher-seeded team.

First-round playoff games will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, followed by second-round games on Saturday, Oct. 31. The march will continue until teams qualify for the seven divisional championship games, which will be played Thursday and Friday, Nov. 19-20, at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.

Statewide, 30 teams enter the final week of the regular season with 8-0 records. The only area teams on that list are Kenosha Bradford (of the Southeast Conference), Milwaukee Marquette (Greater Metro), defending Division 1 state champion Homestead (North Shore), Pewaukee (Woodland), Waterford (Southern Lakes) and Waukesha West (Classic 8).

Forty-six more state teams are currently 7-1 overall, including these area representatives: Brookfield Academy, Brown Deer, Burlington Catholic Central, Cedarburg, Menomonee Falls, Lake Country Lutheran, Milwaukee Bradley Tech, Milwaukee Riverside, Milwaukee Vincent, New Berlin Eisenhower, Racine Lutheran and Whitnall.

IT'S A LOCK

Several area teams have already locked in playoff berths heading into the final round of regular-season play, while a handful of teams are still perched on the precarious must-win fence.

Teams from local conferences that are already in (along with their likely, though NOT all guaranteed, divisional placement):

Division 1: Arrowhead, Hartford, Homestead, Kenosha Bradford, Kenosha Tremper, Menomonee Falls, Milwaukee Bay View, Milwaukee Hamilton, Milwaukee King, Milwaukee Marquette, Milwaukee Riverside, Oconomowoc, Racine Park, Waukesha West.

Division 2: Cedarburg, Franklin, Greendale, Lake Geneva Badger, Milwaukee Bradley Tech, Milwaukee Vincent, Sussex Hamilton, Waterford, West Bend West, Whitnall.

Division 3: Brown Deer, Catholic Memorial, New Berlin Eisenhower, Pewaukee, Union Grove, Wisconsin Lutheran.

Division 5: Greendale Martin Luther, Milwaukee Heritage Christian.

Division 6: Brookfield Academy, Lake Country Lutheran, Racine Lutheran.

Division 7: Burlington Catholic Central.

GOTTA GET THERE

At 4-3 in the Woodland Conference's Blue Division, New Berlin West is sure to earn a playoff spot if it can win at home against winless Greenfield on Wednesday. Even with a loss, the Spartans are still mathematically likely to meet the WIAA's qualifying criteria.

On the other hand, it appears the following area teams MUST win this week to meet the playoff qualifying criteria:

• North Division (City)
• Kettle Moraine (Classic 8 Conference)
• Brookfield Central (Greater Metro)
• St. John's Northwestern and Kenosha St. Joseph (Midwest Classic)
• Germantown and Milwaukee Lutheran (North Shore)
• Oak Creek (Southeast)
• Burlington and Delavan-Darien (Southern Lakes)
• Slinger (Wisconsin Little Ten)
• South Milwaukee (Woodland)

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Recent Talkbacks ...

Posted by ballcoach on Oct. 21, 2009 at 10:56 a.m. (report)

Great article, clear and actually lays out the playoff picture. As a former coach in MKE now coaching and living somewhere else it is nice to be able to read what is going on. I will be forwarding this to other people in my situation. Great work.

Posted by Veseth40 on Oct. 21, 2009 at 6:10 a.m. (report)

YES! You have Art writing for you! There hasn't been anyone more dedicated to covering HS sports and I have really missed him. Nice pick up. I look forward to reading his stuff on OnMilwaukee.com---all the way through the playoffs.