Here's my quick take: Our high school football will give us some great storylines this season.
No, not every team will end with a winning record. In fact, more teams will finish under .500 than those which will do the opposite.
I've said it before and I'll say it again — winning is hard.
Winning is also fun.
Watching our local teams show up in crunch time last year was wild. The way that Sparta and Tomah had to carve out wins just to eek into the playoffs was something remarkable.
Watching those teams win, well, that was fun.
However, I can't help by caution those two fan bases going into this season.
I know the expectation is to repeat those feats of success, but don't get your hopes too high.
I say this because the story for 2024 will be different. Whatever happened this year is in the past. Most importantly, I've seen bad things happen when fans start to have certain expectations - and that's what both will have going into 2024 - and there's a chance things don't end up falling in line with those expectations.
Last year was a great story for our locals in the MVC, but I'll go on record to say that the league was rather paltry. I mean, when you have four teams (that's half of the conference) ending with marks of 3-4 in league play, does that mean the conference is exceptionally strong? Parity is good, but when seven of eight schools can make the playoffs — and two of those were just 3-6 — it's hard for me to say it's a good league in the grand scheme of things.
That being said, I think we may be in for very competitive league play this year. Onalaska has to come down a bit, right? La Crosse Central and Baraboo also? Does the back end of the league move ahead? Well, we'll have to wait and see how it plays out. That's the fun of it at this point.
There are enough question marks in the Scenic Bluffs to make me think that the race for the league title will be, at least, a little intruiging.
I do expect Bangor to enter as the favorite, but newcomer Ithaca is a team I wouldn't sleep on. They really seemed to turn things around by season's end a year ago and have had enough of a successful tradition for me to believe in them.
I'll miss Luther in the SBC, however. I thought they were a great fit. They pushed our best teams and, to me, that's the mark of a quality conference addition.
Hillsboro, though a regular SBC member, hasn't had much success in recent years. Their addition — though praised by most coaches — doesn't help the best teams in the SBC get better. They'll give some wayward squads false hope of where they're at by not hammering them 45-0, but is that really good for improving the game?
I fully expect some fun games between Bangor, Ithaca, Cashton and Hillsboro, though. If you want to see fun SBC ball, go find a game with two of those teams. I think you'll be entertained.
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