UEC will look different in 2010
League adding more teams
These are the final days of Upstate Eight Conference football before it takes a new shape.
It has two teams remaining in the IHSA playoffs, as well as 9-1 Geneva, which will leave the Western Sun and join the league at the end of the academic year.
(Sun-Times Media File)
• Waubonsie Valley vs. Larkin
• Neuqua Valley vs. St. Charles North
• Metea Valley vs. Elgin
• Batavia vs. Bartlett
• Streamwood vs. East Aurora
• Lake Park vs. St. Charles East
• South Elgin vs. Geneva
At that point, the UEC will expand with Geneva, Batavia and a Metea Valley program moving up to the varsity level for the first time in football. It will divide into two seven-team divisions.
"I think it will become a little more stable. It'd be nice going forward that you're gonna have a clear-cut champion in a division," Neuqua Valley coach Bryan Wells said. "It's better than some of the three-, four-way ties we've had in recent years."
The odd number of teams left Neuqua looking for an extra game this season. Wells basically drew a radius around Illinois -- contacting programs in Minnesota, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan -- and could only find one opponent that would work.
In Week 6 Cathedral -- a decorated Indianapolis program that is seeking its third state championship in the past four years -- drilled Neuqua 63-34.
"We're not gonna have to go searching to find a third nonconference game in the middle of the schedule, which is so difficult to do, which is why we ended up at Cathedral," Wells said. "I think the overall health of the conference is gonna be much better in the way that we're structuring it. And I think it'll be more fair to all the teams throughout the conference (in) terms of the people you got to play."
Neuqua finished 3-6, though its schedule won't get much easier next season, opening with Naperville North and Naperville Central before playing St. Charles North in its UEC divisional crossover game.
Waubonsie Valley will have Larkin as a crossover, while Metea will do the same with Elgin. Waubonsie coach Paul Murphy indicated that the first draft of matchups were determined by divisional bye weeks and not enrollments or previous records.
Metea finished this season 6-3 on the sophomore level, 6-2 on the freshman A squad and 7-1 on the freshman B team. It can study the success of South Elgin, which finished this year 7-3 on the varsity level and qualified for the playoffs in its fourth season.
Neuqua's freshman teams combined to go 17-0-1 this year, a selling point for its staff.
"You'd be surprised in how that correlates," Wells said. "I've actually tracked it for a while. How they do as freshmen is pretty close (to) how that class does as seniors.
"I don't dismiss it at all. We don't overemphasize it, but to me it's an indicator."
In 2006 Central made a run to the state quarterfinals, which enabled the Waubonsie staff to scout a few extra games before the 2007 season opener it won against the Redhawks. Murphy's not planning on doing that again this time.
The Warriors coach is instead curious to see what No. 7 Downers Grove South (8-2) will do against No. 2 Bolingbrook (9-1) after eliminating Waubonsie last week.
As of Tuesday night, Murphy hadn't yet watched the film from that 22-21 loss to Downers Grove South -- he was thinking about doing that this weekend: "I'm not in a big hurry. I can't change the result."
After a 6-4 campaign, Waubonsie will be getting ready for a new UEC challenge.
"We're starting to plan for next season and we're collecting equipment and all the things you're supposed to do at the end of the season," Murphy said. "When the season ends in football, (it's) very sudden (and) it kind of leaves a void."
