New IHSA proposal very similar to Carrick's 2014 plan
Four years after it was rejected, Sycamore athletic director Chauncey Carrick’s football realignment plan is seeing new life. After a fashion, at least.
The IHSA football committee recently revealed a proposal that drastically would change how the high school football regular season schedules are created and how teams qualify for the postseason in an effort to diminish continual conference realignment – something Carrick and the soon-to-be-defunct Northern Illinois Big 12 are very familiar with.
“We put forth a lot of thought into it and didn’t just do it all willy nilly,” Carrick said. “I think it’s cool they are modeling this after what we wanted to do. It’s a compliment and makes you think you were steering the boat in the right direction.”
The committee proposes that the IHSA assign schools to eight- or nine-team districts, eliminating traditional football conferences altogether. Districts would be assigned based on enrollment and geography. District assignments would be re-evaluated and potentially changed every two years based on changes in school enrollments.
Districts would be for football only. Schools could retain membership in their traditional conferences for other sports.
Each playoff class would consist of eight districts. Each team would play every other team in its district, and the top four teams in the district standings would qualify for the 32-team playoffs.
Teams still would play a nine-game regular season and schedule their own nondistrict games (one or two based on the size of the district) to fill out the nine-week schedule. Nondistrict games would not count toward playoff qualification. In the postseason, schools would not play a team from their district until the quarterfinals at the earliest.
The committee plans to share its proposal and listen to feedback from schools in November, when the IHSA considers by-law amendments. Any formal proposal would have to pass a vote by IHSA member schools.
Other states, such as Iowa, use a district system. A similar district setup proposed by Carrick was put to a vote in 2014. IHSA member schools rejected it, 395-212. But in the years since, conference realignment has not slowed, leading to the idea being revisited.
There are differences between the plans. Although the details on the new IHSA plan aren’t hammered out or public yet, Carrick said the biggest difference he saw was the current plan does not feature 10-team districts, while his did.
DeKalb County has been an epicenter for conference shake-ups, as all three football conferences in the area have changed in recent years. The Big Northern Conference, home to Genoa-Kingston, lost a chunk of it’s membership to the upstart Kishwaukee River Conference.
The Northern Illinois Big 12 is about to dissolve, with most schools – including Sycamore and Kaneland – set to join the Interstate Eight. DeKalb still doesn’t have a new conference, and Kaneland still hasn’t officially accepted an I-8 invitation.
Kaneland athletic director Peter Goff – who is set to take over the DeKalb job in July – said he can see the proposal’s upside, but thinks it will be very tough for it to pass.
“That’s the whole thing is trying to make it equal,” Goff said. “There’s pluses and minuses with any system. Some states do districting and some do it our way. People from there may look at us and say they wish they had our system. But I would rather have districts to level the playing field and stop conference jumping.”
The Northeast Athletic Conference has seen some turmoil over the past couple of seasons, with teams switching conferences or dropping football altogether. Hiawatha had to play a nonconference game last year against a Michigan team, and the league, made up of mostly Rockford-area schools, admitted Varna Midland.
Rockford Christian, which left for the Big Northern Conference earlier this decade, is returning as well.
Hiawatha football coach Jason Keneway said he “vaguely looked” at the proposal, but thinks it will help the Hawks.
"We let teams like Rockford Christian into our conference and with Ottawa Marquette and the private schools, it’s difficult for the public schools to compete. It could help a school in our situation,” Keneway said. “Year in and year out the conference can be something familiar, not constantly changing like ours. Sacred Heart doesn’t even know if they’re going to have a team. We still have questions on our schedule, and it’s the middle of May.”
DeKalb football coach Matt Weckler said he likes the plan. And while it certainly would help the Barbs, he said he also was a fan of the plan when it was proposed in 2014.
Weckler said the opportunity to play nonconference games that don’t effect playoff positioning opens up a world of possibilities.
“If the IHSA put it in play, we’d all have to do it, and we’d get used to it and like it,” Weckler said. “I’ve talked to other coaches in other states that have similar district alignments, and at first, they didn’t like it, but now they love it. When you’re looking for nonconference, it’s a lot of fun because you can find the best possible teams to play. It’s not only about competition but exposure as well.”
But questions remain, notably travel concerns.
Travel probably wouldn’t be too much of an issue for the vast majority of Class 7A and Class 8A schools in the Chicago area. But 7A and 8A schools outside the Chicago area could wind up getting stuck in the same district as schools on the fringes of the Chicago suburbs. High school football expert Steve Soucie created his own district projections for Shaw Media.
According to Soucie’s projections, one Class 8A district includes Belleville East, Belleville West, Edwardsville, Minooka, O’Fallon, Plainfield East, Plainfield North and Plainfield South.
It’s 272 miles from Plainfield East to Belleville West, or roughly a four-hour drive. With half the district in the Chicago area and half in the St. Louis area, each team in the district would likely have to make two similar road trips during the course of the nine-game regular season.
One Class 7A projected district is even more spread out. Soucie projects Alton, Bradley-Bourbonnais, Collinsville, East St. Louis, Moline, Normal Community, Pekin and Quincy in the same district.
Bradley-Bourbonnais’ closest district opponent would be 83 miles away. Moline’s closest district opponent would be 102 miles away.
Goff said he doesn’t think the proposal will pass, and Carrick said he wasn’t sure. “You’re looking at 17 percent or so of the state needing to change their minds [since the 2014 vote],” Carrick said. “I think some smaller schools, some downstate schools, don’t have as much shuffling as the Chicagoland area. The people I’ve talked to are about 50-50 on it. I don’t really have a gut feeling one way or the other.”
• Sean Hammond contributed to this report. Contact him at shammond@shawmedia.com.