The Macomb Bombers and West Hancock Titans found a conference in which to play a full high school football schedule in the spring. That left the only other West Central Conference school, Quincy Notre Dame, with holes in their schedule. According to wcia.com, the Raiders will temporarily join the 11-team Big 12 Conference, in football only, for the upcoming spring. That guarantees a full seven-game slate for QND.
For one season only, the Big 12 will be comprised of three, four-team geographical divisions. Each school will play three in-division games before teams are seeded for a conference tournament the final four weeks of the regular season. The 7th and final regular season week will be the the Big 12 conference championship game.
The Raiders will pair up with Normal West, Normal Community and Bloomington for their central division schedule. The western division will be made up of Peoria schools, Peoria High, Peoria Notre Dame, Manual and Richwoods. The eastern division of the temporary Big 12 conference will be Urbana, Champaign Central, Champaign Centennial and Danville.
With an enrollment of 407, Quincy Notre Dame is more than 200 fewer students than the smallest Big 12 school. In fact, nine of the eleven conference schools have an enrollment of at least 1,144 students.
