(12-22-18) On May 12, 2018, Steve Soucie posted in a Shaw Media story on the IHSA vote on Proposal 23 to consider district play in football. In that story he posted how districts for the entire state and what he saw as possible groupings for all eight classes, based on information available at that time. This was posted seven months before the results of the vote were posted on December 18th.

The districts will not be implemented until the 2021 football season. The proposal keeps in place the current nine-week regular season but playoff classes will be determined prior to the season by enrollment, with schools in each class placed in eight geographic groups of eight or nine teams by the IHSA and they will all play a round-robin schedule.

The top four teams in each district advance to the playoffs. Districts will change every two years as enrollments fluctuate, co-ops change or the success factor is applied to non-boundaried schools. Two non-district games, which schools would schedule on their own, would not count toward playoff participation.

Complete listing of projected Districts –

Taking a look at two Stateline area conferences, the NIC 10 and the Big Northern Conference, all of their members would have been scattered in 2018 over several different classes.  The NIC 10 would have been in three classes, 7A, 6A and 5A. The Big Northern members would have been in 5A, 4A and 3A districts.

Both conferences have 10 members (perfect for scheduling 9 regular season games), the surprise outcome of the vote was when a Rockford Register-Star story said NIC 10 schools had voted 8-2 in favor of the proposal (Hononegah and Belvidere North voted no), in a statewide vote that was decided by just 17 votes that is a factor to remember. According to several media reports on the Big Northern Conference, voting no on the proposal were Rock Falls and Dixon and voting yes were Mendota and Oregon.

2018 Projected Districts by Steve Soucie

Red – NIC 10  — Blue – Big Northern — Black Bold – Stateline

CLASS 7A (68 total teams)

District 1 (8): Algonquin (Jacobs), Cary-Grove, Fox Lake (Grant), Harlem, Auburn, East, Hononegah, Round Lake

CLASS 6A (68 total teams)

District 1 (8): Belvidere, Belvidere North, Crystal Lake Central, Crystal Lake (Prairie Ridge), Crystal Lake South, Hampshire, Guilford, Jefferson

CLASS 5A (67 total teams)

District 1 (8): Aurora Central Catholic, Burlington  Central , Freeport, Glen Ellyn (Glenbard South), Boylan, Woodstock, Woodstock Marian, Woodstock  North

District 5 (8): Dixon, Geneseo, Kankakee, LaSalle-Peru, Morris, Rochelle, Sterling, Streator

CLASS 4A (67 total teams)

District 1 (8): Genoa-Kingston, Harvard, Johnsburg, Marengo, North Chicago, Richmond-Burton, Rockford Lutheran, Stillman Valley

District 2 (9): Chicago (Agricultural Science), Chicago (Julian), Coal City, Kewanee, Manteno, Mendota, Plano, Rock Falls, Sandwich

CLASS 3A (67 total teams)

District 1 (8): Byron, Erie, Oregon, Peru (St. Bede), North Boone, Princeton, Spring Valley (Hall), Winnebago
CLASS 2A (67 total teams)

District 1 (8): Amboy, Chicago (Collins), Chicago (Hope Academy), Chicago (Marshall), Chicago (Orr), Pecatonica, River Grove (Guerin), Rockford  Christian

CLASS 1A (67 teams total)

District 2 (8): Aurora (Christian), Chicago (Fenger), Dakota, Kirkland (Hiawatha), Melrose Park (Walther Lutheran), #Mooseheart, *Rockford  Our Lady of the Sacred Heart , South Beloit

Rockford Christian will continue their nightmare tour in football, asking not to compete in Big Northern football (Crusaders were the 11th member) and last year rejoined the Northeastern Athletic Conference. They would have joined a 2A district that would have them them grouped with four Chicago schools.

  • # dropped football for 2019
  • * will play 8-man football in 2019