Bracket chatter: Who's the last team in and the first team out?

In recent years, the WIAA football postseason has welcomed a number of sub-.500 teams, and rarely do we have what happened in 2016: precisely 224 teams with winning or .500 records making the field.

In case you were curious which team would have been left out if one more team had been eligible, it's Division 5 squad Marshall, playing in an unusual format with four conference games. The first tiebreaker that comes into play is record of conference opponents beaten, and Marshall's two wins came against teams that went a combined 1-7 (.125 winning percentage).

Oostburg (.156) was next on the list, and several schools tied for next on the list with 3-15 records (.167), including Milwaukee Washington, South Milwaukee, DeForest, Fort Atkinson, Elk Mound, Cameron, Shiocton, Tri-County, Johnson Creek and North Crawford.

As one example of something that could have altered the course of history for multiple teams, take Division 1 squad Mukwonago, which was upset at the hands of Kettle Moraine in the Week 9 finale and finished with 3-4 record in the mighty Classic 8. If Mukwonago wins that game, they slot into Division 1, Marshall is bumped out and everyone moves down one spot on the enrollment chart below Mukwonago. That puts Milwaukee Washington in Division 2, Whitefish Bay in Division 3, Fox Valley Lutheran in Division 4 and University School in Division 5.

It's just one quirk in the WIAA postseason process that can shift dramatically based on one outcome. At the same time, Menomonee Falls (a Division 2 squad) could have lost to undefeated Brookfield Central as one would expect, leaving the Indians at home and opening up a door for a sub-.500 team (in this case, De Pere). De Pere and Falls have near-identical enrollments, however, so that outcome would have left the divisions unchanged.