Chester will host Warriors Friday Night October 23 at 7 p.m. at W.O. Smith Field in Opening Round
BY JIM BEERS
The pairings for the 2026 IHSA Class 2A State Football Playoffs were announced Saturday October 17 at 9:00 p.m. Once again, the Chester YellowJackets were named in the list of teams to compete in the Class 2A field of playoff teams.
2026 marks a fairly major change in the playoff scene as this year, more teams will be allowed to enter the playoffs and have an opportunity to take part in the IHSA State Football Playoffs.
Brackets are divided into two halves, Northern Teams and Southern Teams. There are 16 teams in the Northern Bracket and 16 teams in the Southern Bracket for a total of 32 teams in each bracket. The Opening Round and First Round each have 32 teams. The Second Round is the “Sweet-16” round of 16 teams. Round 4 is the Quarter-Final Round of 8-teams. Round 5 is the Semi-Finals round of the “Final-Four”. Finally, “Round 6” is the 2026 Championship Game featuring the Top-2 teams in Class 2A.
This year, there will be eight classes of competition. Each class is determined by the size of the participating schools. Smaller classes begin the labeling of the playoff groups. Class 1A is the smallest school size followed by Class 2A, Class 3A, Class 4A, Class 5A, Class 6A, Class 7A, and Class 8A.
Each class has a total of 48 teams, for a total of 384 Illinois teams that will get to compete for a State Championship Title. Sixteen teams earned a bye in the first week of the playoffs. They will enter the tournament in Round 1 of the State Playoffs on Week 2, October 30-31.
The “Opening Round”, which is basically a nice way to label a round of 16 “Play-In Games”, begins the tournament this Friday and Saturday October 23-24. A total of 32 teams will battle in Week 1. The event is single elimination, so after Week 1, 16 teams will be eliminated from the playoffs.
The 16 winning teams in Week 1 will survive to face the 16 teams that earned a bye in Week 1. That arrangement brings the playoffs to the original level of 32 teams to begin Week 2 on October 30-31. In “Round 1”, 16 teams will advance to the “Sweet-16”, while another 16 teams will be eliminated.
Round 2 (in Week 3) will take place Friday and Saturday November 6-7. There will be eight games in Week 3 which feature 16 teams. Eight of those teams will be eliminated and the winning eight teams will advance to the Final Eight teams that will compete in four games, in Week 4 November 13-14.
The IHSA State “Semi-Finals” will feature the “Final Four” teams who will face off in Week 5, November 20-21.
The State Finals will take place on Thanksgiving weekend, Friday November 27 at 1 p.m. in Hancock Stadium in Bloomington, Illinois. In all, it will take 47 games in each of the eight classes (376 games) to reach a 2026 State Champion at all eight levels.
Chester has had its share of tough first-round draws over the years. This year, the YellowJackets have a very good chance to advance to Week 2. The YellowJackets will also have a home game on a Friday Night, October 23. The Jackets seem to play better on Friday night games.
This year, Chester will play on Friday night October 23 at 7 p.m. The Jackets will host the Trenton-Wesclin Warriors. Trenton-Wesclin plays in the same conference and division as the YellowJackets, so the CHS players already know much about the Warriors.
In regular season play this year, Chester traveled to Trenton-Wesclin and won, 41-7. The Warriors finished 2-7 for the 2026 regular season. Chester finished 5-4. If Chester wins against Trenton-Wesclin, they will play Newton in the next round. Newton is 6-3 on the regular season and the Jackets would travel to Newton if that game becomes a reality.
There are several other Southern Illinois teams that will be competing in the 2026 IHSA Class 2A State Football Playoffs including DuQuoin, Christopher, Carmi-White County, Johnston City, Nashville, Red Bud, West Frankfort, McLeansboro-Hamilton County (5-4), and Vandalia.
Opening Round Class 2A games feature Chester (5-4) vs Trenton-Wesclin (2-7); DuQuoin (5-4) vs Christopher (3-6); Carmi-White County (5-4) vs Shelbyville (2-7); and McLeansboro-Hamilton County (5-4) vs Niantic-Sangamon Valley (3-6).
Five local teams drew a bye in Week 1 including Johnston City, Nashville, Vandalia, West Frankfort, and Red Bud. They all wait to play their first games in Week 2 or the “First Round” games.
# 1 Johnston City (9-0) will play the winner of Carlinville and Riverton; # 8 Newton (6-3) will play the winner of Chester and Trenton-Wesclin; # 4 Nashville (7-2) will play the winner of DuQuoin and Christopher; # 5 Vandalia (7-2) will play the winner of McLeansboro-Hamilton County and Niantic-Sangamon Valley; # 2 West Frankfort (8-1) will play the winner of Decatur-St. Teresa and Piasa-Southwestern; and # 7 Red Bud (6-3) will play the winner of Auburn and Jacksonville-Routt.
In Class 1A # 10 Villa Grove (6-3) will host # 23 Dupo (3-6). # 14 Carlyle (6-3) will host # 19 Nokomis (4-5).
In Class 3A # 17 Metropolis-Massac County (6-3) vs # 16 Roxana (6-3); # 24 Columbia (2-7) vs # 9 Stanford-Olympia (6-3); # 20 Breese Mater Dei (6-4) vs # 13 Sparta-Steeleville (7-2); # 18 Harrisburg (5-4) vs # 15 Belleville Althoff (6-3); and # 22 Staunton (4-5) vs # 11 Fairfield (7-2).
# 6 Benton (8-1) BYE will play the winner of Staunton vs Fairfield in Week 2 Round 1.
In Class 4A # 7 Freeburg (7-2) will face # 2 Carterville (9-0).
Tickets to the Chester vs Trenton-Wesclin game at W.O. Smith Field at Chester High School, will be sold at the gate for $8.00 each. Gates open at 6 p.m.