Casual fans overlook the fact that the 2A, 3A and 4A champs were heavily tested by public schools in earlier rounds.
Casual fans also have short memories. Who remembers these title games?
2023
Wilmington 28 Athens 3
Byron 69 Mt Carmel 7
2022
Lena Winslow 30 Camp Point Central 8
ESL 57 Prairie Ridge 7
2021
Wilmington 24 Nashville 7
Byron 35 Tolono 7
Wheaton North 35 St Rita 6
Lockport 24 Maine South 6
The above games are obviously a selection, so, please, no Einsteins are needed to tell me what I forgot to include. The common elements in the above list are:
1. Losing team scoring in the single digits AND
2. Margin of victory of at least 3 scores AND
3. Winning team being a public school.
I could have loosened up the list criteria a little more and/or tinkered with the Boolean operators (get it? and/or?) to add more games to the list, but I feel like the point is sufficiently made that there are blowouts or dud games over Thanksgiving weekend pretty much each and every year. Furthermore, they are not limited to private schools defeating public schools.
All the angst and knee jerk reaction on the part of public school apologists this year conveniently ignores that our championships are rarely, if ever, all close games. The angst is born out of a long established double standard that holds that it's okay for public schools to beat up on public or private schools in the playoffs, but not okay when it's private schools beating public schools. It's the same double standard that says it's okay when public schools like Rochester or ESL or WWS or Carthage put together long runs of extraordinary playoff success, but private schools that do the same need to be success factored and multiplied.
Give me the NIPL.