Change in high school football is looming in fall air

There has been plenty of change going into the 2021 high school football season with teams switching conferences and dropping their programs to join co-ops, but there's reason to think that it could just be the tip of the iceberg.

District 6 chairman Bill Marshall said he expected "a lot more coming" when asked if he envisioned more co-ops and teams struggling with numbers, which may eliminate some of the smaller-school Inter-County Conference teams in future seasons. But they might already be finding replacements.

We already know Portage will be leaving the WestPAC for the Heritage Conference starting in 2022, and with the news Bishop Carroll Catholic will not be fielding its own high school football team for at least the next few seasons, more holes were created in possible future WestPAC schedules along with already losing Ferndale and Shade over the past few seasons.

In the Mountain League, things also seem to be in flux.

Central left for the Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference before this year, and though Hollidaysburg will be joining the league in most sports this year, that agreement does not include football.

While the WestPAC and Mountain League deal with holes in their schedules created by teams leaving their respective conferences, the Inter-County Conference already added one team this season in Curwensville and has had several others apply for membership from other leagues. The league met Friday to have a discussion about its future and those applications, and there could be a vote as early as September.

"We really enjoy the competition we have in the ICC, and we have good relationships with all of those schools," Bellwood-Antis coach Nick Lovrich said. "Right now, things are kind of in an uproar, kind of like college football with the SEC. The WestPAC is in an uproar, the Mountain League doesn't have a lot of teams. The Bishop Carroll-Bishop McCort merger changes things, so there's probably a lot of change coming to high school football in our area. I don't know what the answer is going to be, but whatever it is, we'll be ready to go."

WestPAC teams like Meyersdale, North Star and Windber are among the teams that have applied for ICC membership, and after an attempted partnership with District 9 fell through, some Mountain League teams may also be looking to follow Curwensville into the growing conference.

"We're excited, because it brings a lot of the local teams and local rivalries back," Curwensville football coach Jim Thompson said. "We have Bellwood, West Branch, Mo Valley and Glendale on the schedule. Those are teams that us older guys grew up playing against. It's good to have those games back. We're happy to be in a conference where we will like things are stable. With a lot of the co-ops going on, you never know how things are going to shift, but I feel like this conference is adding teams, which makes it much easier with scheduling, and outside of Williamsburg (which merged with Juniata Valley for football), everything seems really stable."

Some of the larger Mountain League schools may be eyeing the Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference, especially if the LHAC adapts its football schedule to allow for one bye week to accommodate an out-of-conference opponent. That would mean a school like Tyrone could join the LHAC and renew its rivalry with Central while maintaining its rivalry with Bellwood-Antis of the ICC.

Windber -- a one-time rival of Westmont Hilltop and Richland -- also would seem like more of a fit in the LHAC than the ICC if that wiggle room was added to the schedule.

Could it be possible that in a few years, the WestPAC and Mountain League no longer exist and the ICC and LHAC become super-sized conferences with a large-school and small-school division? It's certainly possible and even likely as schools continue to make plans not to be left out -- one of the reasons Portage was proactive with its move to the Heritage Conference.

Chestnut Ridge was without a home for several years before finding a spot in the LHAC that helped stabilize its schedule and avoid trips throughout the state, and it seems like teams would rather form super conferences in the future than deal with what the Lions went through for several years.

Stay tuned.

Michael Boytim can be reached at mboytim@altoonamirror.com or 814-946-7521. Follow him on Twitter @BoytimMichael.

2021 changes

Several area high school football teams have made changes for this season, and more moves could be on the way.

Switching conferences: Central (Mountain to LHAC); Cambria Heights (LHAC to Heritage); Portage (WestPAC to Heritage in 2022)

Co-ops: Williamsburg joined with Juniata Valley; Bishop Carroll joined with Bishop McCort; Shade joined with Conemaugh Township; Saltsburg and Blairsville became River Valley.