I will be honest, my high school playing days were during Indiana's playoff system. We were kind of screwed from the start having a 2A school in our conference that we had to play hurt us tremendously. We typically had to rely on other schools to lose for us to make the playoffs. I don't recall ever having more emphasis put on any game because of playoff implications. I don't recall the coaches talking about the playoffs, until late in the year when we were rooting for other teams to lose. We prepared and played hard in every week, playoffs were never given a thought. Having played in a playoff system, and coached in an all in format, there is one constant, losing sucks.