The start of the Summit Athletic Conference season is always met with a lot of excitement.
Who is going to shine in the city? Which teams are going to battle at the top for the Victory Bell? Who will surprise?
All of those questions, and more, were tossed around entering last Friday. After two weeks of non-conference games, one of the top leagues in the entire state began playing each other for Summit City supremacy.
Five games. All cross-division matchups between “A” and “B.”
The result? A 5-0 record for the “A” or “Big” division, with the games decided by an average of 24.6 points.
And people wonder why the SAC is on the verge of collapse.
The format adopted beginning in the 2023 season was supposed to solve a lot of issues that programs had – both power and struggling teams alike.
For the big dogs like Carroll and Bishop Dwenger, the two non-conference weeks to start the season would allow them to schedule up and pick up opponents that would make them better for the postseason.
For struggling programs like Wayne and Concordia, the openings would help find some teams in situations similar to them, and perhaps pick up a few victories they otherwise wouldn’t.
In that respect, the new format has worked. But the core problem is insular. The SAC is too broad in where programs are and what they need out of a conference.
Since the current scheduling format was adopted in 2023 – two non-conference, four division and three cross-division games – the “A” division consisting of Bishop Dwenger, Carroll, Homestead, Northrop and Snider – is 44-6 against the “B” division (Bishop Luers, Concordia, North Side, South Side and Wayne).
That is a .880 winning percentage.
Of those six losses by the “A” division, five are by Northrop. Half of the “B” division victories are by Bishop Luers.
Folks, the competitive balance in the SAC is broken.
Homestead is already not playing Concordia this year. Carroll and the Cadets agreed not to play as well, but neither was able to find a different opponent, which forced them to meet last Friday. The result? A 56-7 drubbing by the Chargers that helped neither team going forward.
Too many “A” v. “B” games are like this. Which is why the writing is on the wall that the SAC at some point will dissolve.
Actually, it already is. Concordia is in its last year of competition in the league, with the Cadets moving to the ACAC for the 2027-28 school year. The SAC has made it plain that it is accepting applications from interested schools to bring the number of members back to 10, but per Blitz’s sources, there isn’t much interest in joining a league that applies a split-gate strategy to its ticketing procedures at athletic events, meaning both home and road teams split the attendance revenue.
And power programs in the SAC are becoming less and less interest in beating up on inferior opponents. If anything, the current format adopted in 2023 gave programs like Bishop Dwenger, Carroll and Homestead a taste of what they could have more often – the ability to face off against the best programs available that prepare them better for the playoffs.
As Blitz has said before, the Victory Bell means more to outsiders than insiders. Winning the SAC is nice and all, but the Victory Bell is a traveling trophy that is awarded to NEXT year’s team. Postseason trophies are awarded in the present, and take center stage in a schools’ lobby or atrium for eternity.
Conversely, the teams at the bottom of the SAC would rather play more opponents more their speed. Concordia is 3-3 in Weeks 1 and 2 over the last three years and 1-14 in Weeks 3-9. So why do you think the Cadets are jumping leagues?
Wayne is 3-5 in the first two weeks since 2023 and 6-16 otherwise.
A certain amount of people will say that struggling programs “just need to get better.” Easier said than done, especially when you are forced to play three cross-division games against much better programs each year.
This is not to discredit the SAC as a league. It is still a powerful conference that is going to consistently get multiple programs to the state finals most years. But the dynamics have changed. The pride that came with winning the league, and the Victory Bell, has diminished significantly.
It is all about the playoffs.
Blitz has learned that a proposal was recently presented to the remaining nine SAC members to lock in a schedule for the foreseeable future for “stability.” It would change the format to three non-conference and six conference games and would lock in everyone for close to a decade. The schedule would not rotate, similar to the NE8, where for instance, Northrop would play Bishop Dwenger every year Week 5, Homestead every year Week 7, etc. Even the cross-division games would not change for the duration of the agreement.
The proposal was not met with much enthusiasm.
It is easy to see break down which programs are on which side. The five FWCS schools will always stay together and vote as a group. Effectively, they are stuck with each other. But the other four – Bishop Dwenger, Bishop Luers, Carroll and Homestead – all see greener pastures if they had more autonomy with their football schedules.
Purists want the SAC to continue to exist. It has a storied history dating back to 1973. But times are changing. The balance of power is changing.
You only need to look at last Friday’s final scores as the reason why.
These opinions represent those of Blitz and Outside the Huddle. No opinions expressed on Outside the Huddle represent those of any of our advertisers. Follow Blitz on Twitter at Blitz_OTH
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