Several years back the Catholic League and East Suburban Catholic Conference went to this four-team “division” format, giving up automatic playoffs bids to league winners and one result is getting more league teams into the playoffs by having more teams reach the 5-win mark.
Question: what if the 8-team North Suburban Conference went to two four-team divisions.
For example. Stevenson, Lake Zurich, Libertyville and Warren would be one group and Zion-Benton, Waukegan, Lake Forest and Mundelein could be the other.
Play 3 division games and 2 crossovers. That gives each school a chance to play for other opponents instead of the current two.
The problem of course is finding games weeks 3 and 4 outside the conference.
Which gets me to this: What if a lot of conferences did this?
The Northern Lake County Conference is eight teams with haves and never haves. What about Round Lake, Grayslake Central, North Chicago and Grant I one division, and Lakes, Antioch, Grayslake North and Wauconda in another.
The 10-team Fox Valley Conference could split into two fives. That’s four division games two or three crossovers for each team and two or three other games.
Obviously scheduling would be a challenge. But this season the luck of the scheduling draw has Warren losing its Week 5 game and then playing the league’s four bottom feeders in weeks 6-9 making me wonder how prepared the Devils will be for the postseason.
After seeing I think an 83-0 score by some area team this weekend, it’s gotta be frustrating for a coach to find a teaching moment when a play is wildly successful no matter how poorly it is executed.
Question: what if the 8-team North Suburban Conference went to two four-team divisions.
For example. Stevenson, Lake Zurich, Libertyville and Warren would be one group and Zion-Benton, Waukegan, Lake Forest and Mundelein could be the other.
Play 3 division games and 2 crossovers. That gives each school a chance to play for other opponents instead of the current two.
The problem of course is finding games weeks 3 and 4 outside the conference.
Which gets me to this: What if a lot of conferences did this?
The Northern Lake County Conference is eight teams with haves and never haves. What about Round Lake, Grayslake Central, North Chicago and Grant I one division, and Lakes, Antioch, Grayslake North and Wauconda in another.
The 10-team Fox Valley Conference could split into two fives. That’s four division games two or three crossovers for each team and two or three other games.
Obviously scheduling would be a challenge. But this season the luck of the scheduling draw has Warren losing its Week 5 game and then playing the league’s four bottom feeders in weeks 6-9 making me wonder how prepared the Devils will be for the postseason.
After seeing I think an 83-0 score by some area team this weekend, it’s gotta be frustrating for a coach to find a teaching moment when a play is wildly successful no matter how poorly it is executed.