The I-8 is dead. Wilmington and Coal City's school boards have already voted to leave...Manteno, Peotone, Herscher, RC, & Lisle have already informed the conference they are leaving as well...Streator according to hearsay has also committed to leaving...several of the Kankakee area schools are on the IHSA website looking for games in the middle of 2018...
Since Steve Soucie left, prep football coverage in the Kankakee Daily Journal has sucked...They have yet to mention Seneca's departure, Morris being shot down as a new member, and the subsequent collapse of the conference....
Westmont was the problem, particularly in football. They refused to play Wilmington below the varsity level, screwing up a Wildcats homecoming (2013 I think). 2014, they moved both the freshman & soph games (at Westmont) against Wilmo to Monday, and then cancelled on Monday afternoon (my stepson was on those soph teams). I took my stepson & a bunch of his friends to scout Manteno-Peotone instead in 2014 - and my Manteno friends were surprised to find Westmont screwed the Cats over like that...Apparently they started doing this to multiple schools...
And then with Seneca's departure, reportedly new interested members included Kankakee & Morris...with 7 3A basketball schools in the conference (Sandwich, Plano, Streator, Manteno, Coal City, Herscher, Peotone), the bigger schools I presume were okay with Morris. I assume R/C & Westmont shot Morris down. Therefore, since Westmont is the problem, the rest of the conference leaves them homeless...