What Team(s) Will Stay Undefeated the Longest this year?
It will be a difficult task for any team to win a state championship undefeated, but the two teams with the best chance seem to be Byron and Wilmington. Wilmington still has a tough regular season test against Coal City.
Loyola at least gets Mt. Carmel at home in the regular season. So, if they can get past that very difficult game, they would enter the playoffs unbeaten and could make a deep run without losing. They may possibly even win 8A without losing a game.
Rochester would likely need to beat Sacred Heart-Griffin twice to make it to the 4A championship game undefeated. At that point Montini or Morris would present formidable obstacles. Morris, itself, should last quite a while in the playoffs without losing, but they are probably third best in 4A.
Lincoln-Way East should finish the regular season unbeaten and could then make a run to the semifinals. Unfortunately, they probably don't have the athletes to win the 8A championship. The same thing can be said about El Paso-Gridley in 2A.
Those are the seven teams that I think have a reasonably good chance of lasting the longest as unbeatens.