(4-15-25) Will the ACAC ever add an 8th member? In this world of high school athletic conferences making changes…there is no BUZZ…not even a PEEP!

You will see below that SSN has done several postings on the 7 member school ACAC, even made suggestions, did research.

So here are some items that might be considered in the future—

The last two schools that left the ACAC…in 2014 Garrett moved to the Northeast Conference and in 2015 Leo left for the Northeast Eight.

The last member to be added to the conference was Jay County in 2014, they had been an independent at that time, after the Olympic Conference had disbanded in 2010.

Only two member schools, Woodlan and Heritage, are located in Allen County.

Indiana is an unique state…they use ‘ping-pong’ balls to seed teams for tournament brackets in most sports…so there are no seeding or using ratings to bracket teams. In football every team is eligible for the playoffs. So there is no pressure on schools to win games or schedule competitive teams. So avoiding a possible member school because that school might have a certain domination in one sport would not be an automatic out for consideration.

Odd-number members in a conference causes scheduling issues, especially football. Finding a non-conference game late in the season gives ADs heartburn for sure. Other sports can adopt, but it does cause some issues.

Several ACAC sports do not have a full compliment of member schools competing. Several solutions could help make those sports viable, including associate members.

Girls soccer has only four members fielding teams – Woodlan, Heritage, Jay County and South Adams.

FOOTBALL

Don’t expect anything to happen in the near future. BUT…sometimes when dominoes start to fall changes happen fast.

Did you know…

The Allen County Athletic Conference has been using the acronym ‘ACAC’. As mentioned in this posting only two current members are in the conference.

The Allen County Athletic Conference began with nine schools in Allen County in 1956. The conference was hit hard by consolidation, the nine original schools (Arcola, Elmhurst, Harlan, Hoagland, Huntertown, Lafayette Central, Leo, Woodburn and Monroeville) were down to four by the 1968 season (and two of those were new consolidations).

The impetus for consolidations was the Indiana School Reorganization Act of 1959, which called for each county to develop and implement a reorganization plan. The effort reduced the number of school districts from 966 to 402. Districts with fewer than 1,000 students fell from 801 to 156.

Past members included: Ossian, Norwell, Carroll, Elmhurst, Churubusco, Eastside,Homestead and
Garrett