Top Conferences

[Alexander33]

Treating each Chicago Catholic League division as a separate conference, one could reasonably argue that three of the top six football conferences in the state are CCL divisions. Here are my top six conferences.

1. CCL-Blue
2. CCL-Green
3. Southwest Suburban
4. West Suburban - Silver
5. DuKane
6. CCL-Orange

What are your top five or six (or more) conferences?

 

[Alexander33]

Treating each Chicago Catholic League division as a separate conference, one could reasonably argue that three of the top six football conferences in the state are CCL divisions. Here are my top six conferences.

1. CCL-Blue
2. CCL-Green
3. Southwest Suburban
4. West Suburban - Silver
5. DuKane
6. CCL-Orange

What are your top five or six (or more) conferences?

For those of you who are more focused on the down-state action, here are my top six conferences that are not in the Chicagoland area.

1. Southwestern-Gold Division
2. Central State Eight
3. Big Twelve
4. Mid-Illini
5. Northern Illinois Ten
6. Western Big Six

Any thoughts?


Note: I did not break the Central State Eight into divisions because it seems the best programs in each division play each other every year in cross-over games.

 

[rocketnation]

I would put the Sangamo in the Top 6 Downstate Conferences, probably would place them 3rd or 4th working off your list. The Sangamo schools are 1A-3A and in the last 10-12 years five of them have played in state title games: Maroa, Williamsville, Auburn, Pleasant Plains, and Athens.

 

[4Afan]

NUIC has had a team in the 1A or 2A title game in all but 4 or 5 years since 2000. Seems like they should be towards the top of a best conferences list.

 

[johnndoe]

Stripping the 3 "Valley" schools and Dekalb from the league, leaving straight Southwest Suburban Conference membership, definitely greased a path for the SWSC in the ranking here.

 

[Alexander33]

NUIC has had a team in the 1A or 2A title game in all but 4 or 5 years since 2000. Seems like they should be towards the top of a best conferences list.

With regard to your comment and rocketnation's above, I ranked the conferences in an absolute sense rather than a relative sense. In other words, for example, would the top three or four teams in the Northern Illinois Ten Conference (NIC10) be likely to defeat the top three or four teams in the Northwest Upstate Illini Conference (NUIC)? I was supposing that they would in most years.

If we were to rank the conferences in a relative sense, then the rankings would be different. Again, in other words, if the conferences were ranked with respect to their strength in relation to the class level(s) in which their respective members play, then the rankings might look more like this.

1. CCL-Blue (Eight state championships in the last five years.)
2. CCL-Green (Six state championships in the last five years.)
3. CCL-White (Three state championships in the last five years.)
4. Big Northern (Three state championships in the last five years.)
5. Illinois Central Eight (Three state championships in the last five years.)
6. Northwest Upstate Illini (Three state championships in the last five years.)
7. Southwestern (Two state championships in the last five years.)
8. CCL-Orange (Two state championships in the last five years.)
9. Fox Valley (Two state championships in the last five years.)
10. Central State Eight (Two state championships in the last five years.)

The method used here is somewhat simplistic, but it gives an idea of what a relative ranking might look like.