The ten-member Summit Athletic Conference will split into two divisions for football starting in 2023, the conference announced Wednesday, January 12.
Each division, labeled Division A and Division B, will feature five schools and reflect enrollment numbers, roster size and conference success, the conference said in a statement released through Fort Wayne Community Schools.
The larger schools--Bishop Dwenger, Carroll, Homestead, Northrop and Snider--will make up Division A; while Bishop Luers, Concordia, North Side, South Side and Wayne will make up the smaller Division B.
With the added divisional alignment comes changes to the SAC schedule. Each team will have four divisional games, a rotating cross-divisional game, and two conference-wide cross-divisional games.
Weeks 1 and 2 will allow teams to schedule out-of-conference games. Weeks 3 and 9 will be the conference-wide cross-divisional games. Week 7 will be rivalry week, which were protected in the changes, the conference says.
As in the past, the team with the best conference record will win the SAC championship.
“These changes give teams two games at beginning of the season to iron out deficiencies in preparation for conference play and allows more meaningful games, experiencing quality out of conference opponents in preparation for the IHSAA Tournament,” SAC commissioner and South Side principal Adam Swinford said in the statement. “We believe this new format will provide a better experience for our student athletes to learn and excel at their sport while enjoying the experience and competitiveness of playing in the Summit Athletic Conference.”
The changes were unanimously approved by both the member-schools' athletic directors and football head coaches.
The Summit Athletic Conference was formed in 1973 when Harding joined the exisitng Fort Wayne City Series. The makeup of the league has changed dramatically in the last decade with the closure of Elmhurst in 2010, the reconfiguration of Harding to a junior high in 2011, and the additions of Carroll and Homestead in 2015.