I live in Indiana, out of curiosity I looked at the Indiana enrollment numbers for football. Waukee would only be the 24th largest school in the state. The largest school is Carmel with an HS enrollment of 5286. In Indiana there are 6 classes for football, no 8-man football, and all teams play in the post season similar to basketball. Everyone is assigned a sectional and then the sectional winner moves on to the next round.
Crazy story about Iowa playoff qualifiers. When I was in 7th grade, Iowa only allowed 8 teams into the playoffs per class. It was based on a point system. That year my high school team was really good, but they lost their opening game 14-13. They then went on to win all the rest of their games and they did it without allowing a single point in any of the games. Unfortunately, due to the point system they did not make the playoffs. On a positive note, we ended up winning state the next two years.