A bevy of changes ahead for the 2024 high school football season

With playing schedules changing every year, the schedule posted by IHSA every year of the coming season’s football always sparks controversy. 
 
This year is no exception for threats of cyber-crimes by hackers who mainly attack political and corporate websites. There is the Tears for Fears style thrown in with the molded David Bowie flair: there are changes, changes, and more changes, and fans may require pencils and scorecards. 
 
It is a great public service that we at Southwest Regional Publishing have compiled some of the answers of questions pertaining to the changes as well as other important aspects. 
 
This is one for the archives, folks – there shall be no second quiz, however a fan of high school football ought to not neglect studying. 
 
Where are players in the Chicago Catholic League / East Suburban Catholic Conference? 
 
Get out your scorecards. 
 
After another year of fine tuning here is the 2024 breakdown for the mighty league that had three state champions among its five title game participants in 2023 & all four Class 5A semi-finalists were from the league. 
 
Blue: Catholic schools of Brother Rice, Mount Carmel, St. Ignatius, Loyola 
 
Green: St. Rita, Immaculate conception Catholic school, Nazareth, Wheaton St. Francis. 
 
Orange: Marist, Providence, Joliet Catholic, Niles Notre Dame. 
 
Purple: To elaborate this list, there is St. Viator, DePaul, St. Patrick, Benet. 
 
Red: In Illinois these are Marmion Academy, De La Salle, Leo, and Marian Catholic. 
 
White: St. Laurence’s, Montini, Carmel cherishing Fenwick. 
 
The SouthWest Suburban Conference simply disappeared from the football map after the Bedford acquisition. 
 
Some of the Naperville area schools merged to join a bunch of other schools out west to create the Southwest Valley Conference, which appears to be a football-only party for the future area schools such as Sandburg and Stagg. 
 
Pull out those scorecards one more time. 
 
Blue: Homewood-Flossmoor, Lincoln-Way East, Lockport, Neuqua Valley, Naperville North. 
 
Green: Waubonsie Valley, Bradley-Bourbonnais, DeKalb, Lincoln-Way Central, Stagg. 
 
Red: Metea Valley, Naperville Central, Lincoln-Way West, Sandburg, Andrew all schools. 
 
Where’s Riverside-Brookfield? 
 
As always, the location chosen was the intersection fo Ridegwood Road and 1St Avenue, just below Brookfield Zoo, of course. But as far as football is concerned, the Bulldogs shall be in their third conference in different association in as many years. 
 
R-B finished 2022 in the Metro Suburban Red and 2023 in the Southland Athletic Conference but may have now found a conference home in the newly branded UpState 8 East (Yep, the “S” is capitalized). They will be joined by Fenton, Elmwood Park, Glenbard South, Glenbard East, Ridgewood and West Chicago teams. 
 
Is it possible that this school Nazareth can succeed in defending its title of being the state champion? 
 
In the year 2022, The Nazareth boys’ basketball team achieved the record of being the first team in Illinois history to jump from a 2-4 season to a class 5A state championship. 
 
Last year the Roadrunners took it to a new level by becoming the first 4-5 team to capture a championship, this time in 5A. 
 
What is going to be brewed for this year? How in the world did going to 0-9 team win the state title? That would be quite impossible for the coach Tim Racki and his team; nonetheless, you never can tell with such characters. 
 
For the third straight year the Roadrunners begins against Kankakee but it is another 7:30 p. m home opener on August 30. Two seasons back in La Grange Park, the Roadrunners defeated the Kays 2-0 on the first match of the season. 
 
Mount Carmel is Hun-gry now; why is this so? 
 
The Caravan a team that has won the previous season’s Class 7A state championship, comes in to practice a day ahead of almost every body for the new season’s opening fixture when they host the Hun School on Thursday, August, 29 from 7. 00 PM at the Carey Field at Barda-Dowing Stadium. 
 
New Jersey has the Hun School and the team has a record of 26-1 in the past three seasons as mentioned on Max Preps. 
 
That raised the question: Will St. Laurence be in the Chase? 
 
The Vikings shocked a lot of people in the season of 2023 when they progressed up to the championship stage of the Class 4A and the team wants to be a winner this year. 
 
Optimism is well-founded as speedster Harley Rizz is back in the running back position. 
 
Another reason is quarterback Chase Kwiatowski changed the Burbank school from Lake Central, Indiana. In 2023, Kwiatowski passed for 1,176 yards with 12 TDs and rushed for 364 yards with 2 TDs and has been recruited to Illinois State university. 
 
There are new trainers in the area, who are they? 
 
Mike Fitzgerald who had coached York prior to the Marist appointment succeeded Ron Dawczak at the college. 
 
De La Salle has Harold Blackmon former of St. Laurence as well as the Oak Lawn where he succeeded Marty Quinn. 
 
At Stagg, Colt Nero departs and is replaced by Jacob O’Connor. 
 
At chicago christian; CJ Cesario replaces Dan Chiarito. 
 
Am I allowed to ask somethings like which of the matchups excites you about the Week 1? 
 
Apart from, the match between the Kankakee team originating from Nazareth and the Mount Carmel team from the Hun School? 
 
Yes, there are Morgan Park at Marist, prospect at Lyons, Richards at Crete Monee, Sandburg at St, Rita and Argo at De La Salle.