Not this shit again......

It's never going to stop until we go to everyone gets in the post season or go to IHSA assigned regions.

Head Idiot wrote:It's never going to stop until we go to everyone gets in the post season or go to IHSA assigned regions.

How soon before we see teams wanting to be in certain conferences depending on the sport?............Don't laugh

4a(6afornet)north wrote:

Head Idiot wrote:It's never going to stop until we go to everyone gets in the post season or go to IHSA assigned regions.

How soon before we see teams wanting to be in certain conferences depending on the sport?............Don't laugh

I think it already happens. There's a few schools in one conference for football, but a different one for everything else.

4a(6afornet)north wrote:

Head Idiot wrote:It's never going to stop until we go to everyone gets in the post season or go to IHSA assigned regions.

How soon before we see teams wanting to be in certain conferences depending on the sport?............Don't laugh

That's already pretty common in my area. Football conferences are totally unique compared to the conferences in other sports, although I don't know if there is even a WCC football conference anymore...

Football is king when it comes to choosing a conference. It's the only sport that your entry into the post season depends on your regular season record. And, one way you can guarantee entry is by winning a 6+ team conference.

Im pretty sure there is mutual interest between Reed Custer and the Sangamon Valley Conference. Id take them in a heart beat especially losing South Newton after next year and heck Iroquois West might not have the numbers for a team.

Going by the fall housing report numbers Seneca is going from just under 450 all the way to barely above 300 in the next 5 years. That cant be good for a program that I think struggled to have 40 kids in it last year. Can only imagine how many kids they would have if they lost 150 kids total. Not a good thing when your playing in the I8.

Districts.

Just get it over with, IHSA.

SIFBCoach7 wrote:Districts.

Just get it over with, IHSA.

I was once so against this.

My stance has changed alot in 5 years.

Bighitter11 wrote:

SIFBCoach7 wrote:Districts.

Just get it over with, IHSA.

I was once so against this.

My stance has changed alot in 5 years.

I think everyone's against it at first.

Then, you're left scrambling for 1-3 games in May and it makes a lot more sense. I used to hate it, but after having to throw together schedules for 3 straight years, it's the only thing that will stop this merry go round.

I would wager that if you eliminated football issues from conferences, you'd have less than 10 schools shift conferences a year.

Yeah we have a scheduling issue next year with South Newton leaving good luck finding a Week 5 game. Hell we just finally got us a week 1 game for next year Yesterday. Luckily after passing on Montini, Geneva, TF South among many big others we found someone in our range

Bighitter11 wrote:Yeah we have a scheduling issue next year with South Newton leaving good luck finding a Week 5 game.  Hell we just finally got us a week 1 game for next year Yesterday.  Luckily after passing on Montini, Geneva, TF South among many big others we found someone in our range

Couple years ago our Week 9 options were Maroa, St. Joe or Tolono. I think at one point we had saw you guys were open for one of our holes, but our super kibosh-ed that travel. So, we stayed close to home and enrollment to get our ass kicked for two years.

I get that schools don't like to be "told" who they are going to play, but there aren't a ton of true rivalries left anymore. The exception might be deep south schools in the SIRR (at least at <4A level). Heck, even the SJO/Unity rivalry has softened in the last decade. When I was in HS, there were fights between the XC teams during the FB game over stolen pirate flags. It's just not as intense anymore. With social media, kids from opposing schools are all "friends" and instagram/Twitter followers.

Mainly, from my neck of the woods, when this proposal first came about, there was a lot of griping from SE IL 3A schools who didn't want to be in a district with SJO, Unity, Monticello, etc when they were currently playing LIC schools and going 8-1. In my time, we never shied away from scheduling anyone, so I don't get that mindset of "scheduling" your way into the playoffs. You either belong there, or you get exposed. The district format would take most of the autonomy from schools scheduling which they won't like, but it would create stability and eliminate conference jumping. You can still have conferences, but you might not have them for football unless they all fit into your geographic district.

SIFBCoach7 wrote:I get that schools don't like to be "told" who they are going to play, but there aren't a ton of true rivalries left anymore.  The exception might be deep south schools in the SIRR (at least at <4A level).  Heck, even the SJO/Unity rivalry has softened in the last decade.  When I was in HS, there were fights between the XC teams during the FB game over stolen pirate flags.  It's just not as intense anymore.  With social media, kids from opposing schools are all "friends" and instagram/Twitter followers.  

Mainly, from my neck of the woods, when this proposal first came about, there was a lot of griping from SE IL 3A schools who didn't want to be in a district with SJO, Unity, Monticello, etc when they were currently playing LIC schools and going 8-1.  In my time, we never shied away from scheduling anyone, so I don't get that mindset of "scheduling" your way into the playoffs.  You either belong there, or you get exposed.  The district format would take most of the autonomy from schools scheduling which they won't like, but it would create stability and eliminate conference jumping.  You can still have conferences, but you might not have them for football unless they all fit into your geographic district.  

The bolded is 100% true and absolutely confusing to me.

I couldn't have told you a single kid on Maroa's football team when I was in HS. I was barely aware they had football. And they were 8 miles away from our school.

HB, I have forgotten, where did you go to high school?

Teetime wrote:HB, I have forgotten, where did you go to high school?

Clinton

All of these teams are complaining about how hard it is for them to be successful in the I-8...but only in football.

RC has a State Championship in Baseball, one of the best programs in Basketball, and fairly solid in girls sports.  I expect them to be one of the better programs in the conference football wise in the near future.

Seneca is getting smaller and smaller every year and they have not had much success in anything in recent years so they do have a case.

Westmont isn't a great fit as is.  

I am not suprised by Seneca and Westmont wanting out but Reed-Custer is a big suprise.  Wilmington is the 2nd smallest and we have success in football and wrestling but nothing else.  Even if we wanted to leave, nobody would let us in simply because of football.

It would be a bad move for RC to get out of the conference.  

Football trumps all and thats why all the shuffling happens. RC has been good in Basketball of late but were average at best for a really long time.

Seneca used to be pretty good basketball program with a title in 06. Enrollment of 503 then.

Took Wilmington awhile to get things rolling but once they did they have kept in going for almost 2 decades now. I think the biggest things are there football coaches coach the other sports too and they are all working together instead of working against each other.

I'm another one who used to be opposed to districts, but see it as the only viable option to avoid these kind of shifts. If you have an odd number of teams in your conference, scheduling becomes a chore.

What did the page say? I see it is a Morris radio station...but they have since taken it down

Big E wrote:What did the page say?  I see it is a Morris radio station...but they have since taken it down

It was Talk of the Interstate 8 Conference. Talk of Reed Custer, Seneca and Westmont possibly leaving. Also talk of Conference looking to add more schools.

Bighitter11 wrote:
Going by the fall housing report numbers Seneca is going from just under 450 all the way to barely above 300 in the next 5 years.  That cant be good for a program that I think struggled to have 40 kids in it last year.  Can only imagine how many kids they would have if they lost 150 kids total.  Not a good thing when your playing in the I8.

Are most of the schools in that area experiencing population loss like this?
Morris has 870 kids
When they won a state title in 2005 they had over 1,000.

I think population changes drive a lot of these conference shifts.

I would think Morris is a school shopping around for a new conference too. Their conference only had 5 members and they have 350 fewer kids than any other school in the NIB12E.

Geneseo had stable enrollment right around 1,000 for many years which climbed/peaked to around 1,100+ and then steadily fell to a low of 800 a few years back. Not sure what the future enrollment projection is, but I'm guessing steady in the area of 800-850 territory.

Would be interesting to see/know the actual objective time-series data on the total number of schools that have changed or jumped conferences every year since say 1991.....and what trend(s) if any this data shows. And to also see/know the true official reason(s) why all these schools changed/jumped conferences. I'm skeptical that the #1 true leading primary reason or root cause is due to wanting to make the football playoffs (or more). I'm guessing changing enrollment, changing demographics, distance/location/travel, fiscal issues, compatibility and general competitive balance or situational trends in more than 1 sport within a conference are all up there as the leading or top reasons to change, jump, or realign conferences.

OldTitan wrote:

Bighitter11 wrote:
Going by the fall housing report numbers Seneca is going from just under 450 all the way to barely above 300 in the next 5 years.  That cant be good for a program that I think struggled to have 40 kids in it last year.  Can only imagine how many kids they would have if they lost 150 kids total.  Not a good thing when your playing in the I8.

Are most of the schools in that area experiencing population loss like this?
Morris has 870 kids
When they won a state title in 2005 they had over 1,000.

I think population changes drive a lot of these conference shifts.

I would think Morris is a school shopping around for a new conference too. Their conference only had 5 members and they have 350 fewer kids than any other school in the NIB12E.

Morris as long as I can remember always hovers around 900-1000 students....I'd call it stagnant instead of dropping enrollment.Even when I was in school back in the 70's Morris was 800+ during those years. The Morris community took the controlled approach during the housing/building boom and didn't fall for the developers wanting to come in and throw up subdivisions left and right.It looks like it was a good approach to take looking back.

FWIW.....I know it was in the past,but When Morris was in SPC they were the smallest and most schools in conference were 2 to 3 times the size of Morris....as far as travel it was much easier to go to Oswego's,Plainfields or Minooka.When the final Plainfield school opened Morris was odd man out.

It would not surprise me to see Morris joining some version of the Interstate 8....or maybe some of the I 8 joining the current version of the NIBXII(-2).Have heard rumors about Plano and Sandwich for a few years now.




















P

Bighitter11 wrote:

Big E wrote:What did the page say?  I see it is a Morris radio station...but they have since taken it down

It was Talk of the Interstate 8 Conference.  Talk of Reed Custer, Seneca and Westmont possibly leaving.  Also talk of Conference looking to add more schools.

LOL.....must be trying to keep the worst kept secret a secret. Or somebody didn't want to go on record with comments.