By A.J. Gates, Herald Independent

STEVENS POINT — The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) Conference Realignment Task Force dropped a bomb recently with the release of its preliminary conference realignment plan for the 2024 and 2025 football seasons.

Aside from shaking up a number of conferences throughout the state, including those in southwest Wisconsin, that bomb landed squarely on the Six Rivers Conference, which under the preliminary plan, would cease to exist in 2024 and 2025.

That’s right, the Six Rivers, which evolved from the former Blackhawk conference in 1998, would no longer exist, with the six teams being split equally into the Ridge & Valley and Southwest Wisconsin Activities League (SWAL).

Under the preliminary plan for 2024–25, Benton/Scales Mound/Shullsburg, River Ridge and Southwestern/East Dubuque would join the SWAL along with Belleville, Cuba City, Darlington, Fennimore and Mineral Point.

Black Hawk/Warren, Pecatonica/Argyle and Potosi/Cassville would be put in the Ridge & Valley conference, along with Madison Abundant Life/St. Ambrose, Boscobel, Iowa–Grant, Riverdale and Wauzeka–Steuben/Seneca.

The Madison Abundant Life/St. Ambrose co-op is actually an anomaly these days, going from eight-man football in 2022–23 to 11-man in 2024-25, which makes one believe their enrollment is actually growing?

Under the new plan, Highland, Ithaca and Hillsboro would also be leaving the Ridge & Valley conference, with Highland playing eight-man, with Ithaca and Hillsboro being moved to the Scenic Bluffs.

Aside from adding Benton/Scales Mound/Shullsburg, Southwestern/East Dubuque and River Ridge, the only other change in the SWAL would be the departure of Parkview/Albany, which would move to the Eastern Suburban conference.

One person particularly not fond of the preliminary plan is River Ridge football coach and AD, Wade Winkers, who would see his Timberwolves become the smallest school and only Division 7 team playing in the SWAL.

“The split of the Six Rivers doesn’t surprise me, I thought that was probably going to be a possibility with us and the Ridge & Valley kind of becoming one,” said Winkers. “I know they really wanted to get eight-team groups, which we want as well. How they split it, I’m a little curious about. I’m perplexed why we were sent to the SWAL when we’re smaller than Black Hawk/Warren and Pecatonica/Argyle, and we’re in the middle of the Ridge & Valley Conference as far as geography.”

“Between the Scenic Bluffs, Ridge & Valley, SWAL and Six Rivers, I anticipated this all happening, I just didn’t group it the way that they grouped it,” Winkers added.

With that being said, Winkers fully plans to appeal to the WIAA by the Jan. 5 deadline, asking to put River Ridge in the Ridge & Valley, and move one of the larger schools to the SWAL in their place.

“I’ve been in contact with the chairman of the realignment committee a few times in the last 24 hours,” Winkers said.

According to the WIAA appeals process, schools looking to appeal the plan, are invited to make their case to the Task Force during a virtual meeting scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 5. 

From there, all schools impacted by the modified realignment plan have the opportunity to provide feedback prior to and during the Task Force meeting on Jan. 12. 

Plans that are advanced from the January meeting will then be reviewed by the Board of Control to make a final determination on each of the proposals at its March 7 meeting.

For schools whose appeals do not get approved by the Task Force, they may make a final appeal to the Board of Control at its meeting on Feb. 1, and based on the appeals, the Board may remand realignment plans back to the Task Force to reconsider at its Feb. 9 meeting, if necessary.

Potosi/Cassville football coach and PHS AD Mark Siegert, is with Winkers, in wondering why River Ridge was one of the schools put in the SWAL instead of one of the larger co-ops.

“It did surprise me that River Ridge got moved,” Siegert said. “I don’t understand that I guess. I think the right thing to do would be to put them in our league.”

“At the same time I think that Black Hawk/Warren belongs in with us, just because it’s a Division 7 conference, and I think that’s the way it always should have been anyway,” he added.

 “Honestly, I hope River Ridge gets put in with us, that would be the right thing to do. But that’s got to be scary for them though, because do you know what the percentage is of going up there, appealing and winning? Who’s going to want to go to the SWAL?” Siegert added.

Southwestern High School AD Tom Koeller also questions how effective an appeal by River Ridge would be, knowing how one team being granted an appeal can affect a number of other schools and completely disrupt what the task force has worked so hard to construct.

“My experience with the WIAA has been, especially with these football-only conferences, I think it’s going to be tough to win an appeal,” said Koeller.

For the Southwestern/East Dubuque football co-op, they got just what they had asked for when making a request to the WIAA to leave the Six Rivers and join up with the SWAL.

“We wanted to get into the SWAL because it’s just a better fit,” said Koeller. “Geographically it makes sense, as far as traditional rivalries it makes sense, and I feel like getting into the SWAL for football, I as an AD, am better to advocate for our team because those are my colleagues in the SWAL for everything else.”

“Every one of those guys and gals in the Six Rivers were really good to me to work with, and I have no personal problems, but we definitely were an outsider. I often wondered if I had much of a voice there like I can and do in the SWAL,” Koeller added.

“We will always be grateful to the Six Rivers for approving our co-op and letting us play as a co-op for two years in that conference. But, all along, most of them were pretty hopeful, and encouraged us, to request a move just based on our combined enrollment,” Koeller concluded.

Southwestern/East Dubuque, who has a combined enrollment of 340 will be the largest school in the SWAL.

For both Winkers and Siegert, the loss of the Six Rivers name is also perplexing, especially with Wauzeka–Steuben/Seneca being the only original members of the Ridge & Valley conference that under the new plan would include three former Six Rivers teams and three former SWAL members.

“I know it’s just a name, but it is a pretty successful conference, so just to see it disappear kind of concerns me,” Winkers said of the loss of the Six Rivers.

“I have to say, it’s a little disappointing too to see the Six Rivers name just go away,” added Siegert. “It’s kind of weird. Hopefully they can come up with some kind of name that would combine the Ridge & Valley and Six Rivers. The Six Rivers traditionally has been very, very strong, and to just get rid of it would be sad.”

As for recent talk involving the Potosi/Cassville co-op considering a move to eight-man football in the near future, coach Siegert explained that won’t be happing in 2024-25.

“There was some discussion of making the jump, but we decided to push that down the road,” Siegert explained. “We’re going to try to be 11-man for as long as we possibly can, and honestly, this conference here would probably help keep us 11-man. Had they moved us into a larger conference then that might be a different deal.”

“We’re just going to take it every couple of years now. We’re really blessed because our roster size is bigger than most D7 schools,” Siegert added. “We’re not used to playing with numbers in the high 20s or low 30s. Other teams in this new Ridge & Valley conference are used to that kind of a deal. We might have to get used to that and maybe stay 11-man then. But who knows now, that’s a long ways down the road.”

“We’re going to play eight-man football in middle school next year because the sizes of our seventh and eighth-grade classes are very small,” said Siegert. “We have a big senior class going out, but we have a just as big, if not bigger, freshman class coming in. But then our numbers in the sixth and seventh grades are fairly small.”

Changes in the SWC

Though not quite as severe as completely eliminating the Six Rivers conference, the Southwest Wisconsin Conference will undergo significant changes under the new realignment plan as well.

Lancaster will remain in the SWC, along with fellow SWC members Platteville, Prairie du Chien and Richland Center, and Brodhead/Juda for football-only. 

New additions to the SWC will include Cambridge, Marshall and New Glarus, which will no longer co-op with Monticello (which has elected to play eight-man in 2024–25).

Departing from the SWC for football-only will be SWC schools Dodgeville and River Valley, who will join the Capitol conference with the likes of Big Foot, Clinton, Columbus, Lake Mills, Lodi and Beloit Turner. One might expect an appeal from Dodgeville.

According to a release sent out by the WIAA last Thursday morning, the Conference Realignment Task Force voted on 35 football-only requests, 27 of which requested placement in a conference or relief from their current conference in 11-man football, one of which was by Southwestern/East Dubuque. The other eight plans submitted were for eight-player football, which included those from Highland and Monticello.

After the appeals process, the WIAA Board of Control will make a final determination on the conference realignment plan at its March 7, 2023 meeting.