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GHS Athletic Director discusses changes to football conferences

Conferences for high school football will soon be a thing of the past in Illinois after the IHSA on Monday voted to institute a new district system for scheduling.

Galesburg High School Athletic Director Eric Matthews explains that every year the IHSA has a number of provisions that get put on a ballot.

Athletic directors and administrators can weigh in online and although a number of other rule changes were passed, none as closely and controversially as this new system.

IHSA will schedule everyone’s games by putting every school in a district based on size. “For example, so for Galesburg, we would be in a district of schools, either 10, 9, or 8 schools, based on our enrollment and then that would be who we would play during the regular season,” he told WGIL.

Matthews suspects this type of system will lead to more traveling.

He’s seen drafts of what the districts could potentially look like and they have had Galesburg playing Peoria area schools, including Morton and Washington but also current Big Six foes like United Township, and Rock Island.

Matthews boils down the that fundamental change is that the IHSA will now schedule the bulk of football games in the state.

Schools will be grouped into districts by school enrollment, which Matthews suspect will create more travel as teams have to make a trek to similar size schools.

Matthews doesn’t deny that not having long-standing conferences will take some getting used to.

“Those games where Moline potentially may not be playing East Moline anymore. They’re right there in their backyard and they’re not going to be able to do that.”

Matthews didn’t cast a yes vote for the measure, but he sees some upside for the Silver Streaks.

Since teams will be facing schools of similar size to them Matthews thinks that creates more opportunities for Galesburg to be competitive.

GHS is far and away the smallest school in the Western Big Six with the exception of private Catholic school, Alleman.

He thinks it’s likely the Streaks would be in a conference with 8 or 9 other schools and get to choose one or two out of district schools to play each season.

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