The Northern Illinois Big 12
The teams that will comprise the Northern Illinois Big 12 Conference, set to begin in the fall of 2010, announced their plans on Monday morning at LaSalle-Peru High School.
The new conference will be comprised of two divisions, which could be renamed at a later time.
The East Division is: DeKalb, Sycamore, Kaneland, Rochelle, Yorkville and Morris.
The West Division is: Dixon, Geneseo, LaSalle-Peru, Ottawa, Sterling and Streator.
The conference's football teams will play each team in their division and then two crossover games (Weeks 3 and 4) each season. That means each school will play any given team in the opposite division once every three years.
The rest of the sports will play crossover games on Saturdays.
In softball and baseball, that will mean Saturday crossover quad games, in place of Saturday doubleheaders, to cut travel expenses. Each team will play two separate games against two crossover opponents.
In girls soccer and boys tennis, there will be just one 10-team conference with. Boys bowling will be one five-team conference while girls bowling will be one 10-team conference.
