Published on October 23, 2026 4:12 pm
Last Updated on October 23, 2026 4:14 pm
The IHSA football postseason commences this weekend, including a trip to Decatur MacArthur for the Effingham Flaming Hearts in the Class 4A playoff field.
Effingham (2-7) takes on the Generals (7-2) at Matheson Field in Decatur at 6 p.m. Saturday in the first-ever “opening round” level of IHSA postseason action. It’s essentially a play-in round before the “first round” is contested the following week. You can find the entire 4A bracket here.
By now anyone paying any attention at all has probably heard about IHSA’s new football playoff format that added 128 playoff spots to this fall’s postseason field. IHSA member schools voted on and passed a measure to ensure each of the eight classes would feature 16 additional teams compared to the 32 that have traditionally qualified.
Almost every additional team walking through that suddenly wider door to Week 10 (and beyond, possibly) sports a sub-.500 record … squads that never would’ve received bids during previous iterations of Illinois high school playoffs. EHS, with its lowest regular-season win total since 2012 but also a double fistful of playoff points thanks to its grueling schedule, is obviously one such team.
There’s been plenty of ink spilled and tears shed by disappointed traditionalists who have spent the last week beside themselves that teams like the Hearts get to play at least one more game, but at the end of the day the only thing the Effingham boys can control is how they come out and play against an obviously talented MacArthur squad.
No reason to believe the Generals won’t get the Hearts’ best effort … Effingham has been living up to that part of the bargain all year, regardless of how many victories resulted.
EHS lost 44-7 to undefeated Centralia to close out the regular season but spent most of the first half locked in a competitive battle with an Orphans squad that drew one of two No. 1 seeds as the best downstate 4A team.
Meanwhile, Effingham is a No. 24 seed and one of the final two teams to work its way into the 4A bracket. MacArthur is a No. 9 with its only losses to eight-win clubs from Jacksonville and Rochester.
Jacksonville whipped the Generals 49-6 in Week 9 and the Rochester game was a similarly lopsided 50-20, but even with those losses MacArthur outscored its opposition 291-162 and finished second behind Rochester in the eastern division of the Central State Eight.
Under 19th-year head coach Derek Spates, MacArthur has qualified for the playoffs a dozen times with a 4-11 postseason mark.
Effingham cracks postseason play for the sixth time in coach Brett Hefner’s 12th year and for the first time since 2023; the Hearts have a 6-5 playoff record during Hefner’s tenure.
The winner Saturday will travel to Mt. Zion next week to tangle with the eighth-seeded Braves; Mt. Zion received a bye during the opening round along with any other team earning a No. 8 seed or higher.
With that 6 p.m. Saturday kickoff scheduled, you can catch the pregame show beginning at 5:45 p.m. here on your Home for Hearts Football, 979 XFM.