The days of interstate travel and other scheduling complications for football teams in the SouthWest Suburban and DuPage Valley conferences appear to be over. DVC athletic directors announced Tuesday that the league, which formed in 1975, is planning to merge with the SWSC beginning next season. The arrangement, which is for football only, creates a 15-team conference consisting of three five-team divisions.
“Then they came to us and said, ‘Hey, we need help.’ We said, ‘We need help. Let’s figure this out.’ So we did.” Teams from both conferences have struggled to fill their nonconference slates. That was particularly true for the six-team DVC. “It relieves the biggest frustration year in and year out, which is scheduling, so that’s a good thing,” Naperville Central coach Mike Ulreich said. “Hopefully, it will be a lot easier to fill out a schedule.