It is difficult to track and chronicle the statewide makeup of athletic conferences on the Iowa high school level. Mergers and attrition have brought the Cornbelt Conference in the northwest down to six members this school year, right before it disintegrates completely.
Unlike the top college levels, though, the Iowa conference process has more or less been perpetually shifting, with no signs of letting up.
The newest change may be in northern Iowa, where the Mitchell County News reports that Riceville may drop out of the Corn Bowl Conference after a proposal to merge the Corn Bowl and North Iowa conferences was floated. Its next home may be the Iowa Star Conference, although the nearest current member is Janesville, over an hour away.
Riceville has really been hammered in the past decade enrollment-wise. It’s lost a quarter of its student population and dropped to 8-man football.
North Tama and GMG both entered the Iowa Star a decade ago because they were the smallest schools in the North Iowa Cedar League.
The bigger story is that “superconference.” The linked article says there could be up to 20 teams in two divisions. Are there other such proposals on the horizon? We’ll have to wait and see.