Southwest Wisconsin Conference

The Southwest Wisconsin Conference is a high school athletic conference in Wisconsin's Driftless Area. Comprising the six largest high schools in the southwest corner of the state, the conference was founded in 2005 and is affiliated with the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association.

The Southwest Wisconsin Conference was formed from a membership split in the Southwest Wisconsin Athletic League. Since 1987, the SWAL had consisted of fourteen schools in two divisions subdivided by membership size. Division I consisted of the larger schools, and the smaller schools made up Division II.^[1] This divisional alignment remained intact for the next sixteen years until 2003. Cuba City, the smallest school in the SWAL Division I, sought to switch divisions and join with smaller schools in the SWAL Division II.^[2] Boscobel, the largest school in Division II, resisted the move and the two factions continued to seek a solution. In 2004, a realignment agreement was reached that would place Boscobel back in an eight-member SWAL Division II, with the remaining six schools comprising Division I.^[3] Instead, the six remaining schools (Dodgeville, Lancaster, Platteville, Prairie du Chien, Richland Center and River Valley) left the SWAL to form the Southwest Wisconsin Conference, commencing play in the 2005-06 school year.^[4]

For the first fourteen seasons of the Southwest Wisconsin Conference, the six members that comprised its all-sport lineup also made up its football roster. During this period, Lancaster was a dominant force in the sport, winning eleven conference championships and three state titles. To achieve greater parity among conference members, Lancaster was moved to the Southwest Wisconsin Activities League as a football-only member for the 2019 season and were replaced by three schools from the Coulee Conference: Arcadia, Viroqua and Westby.^[5] This would only last for one season, as the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association and the WIAA collaborated on a football-only realignment to begin with the 2020 football season and run on a two-year cycle.^[6] The three Coulee Conference members returned to that conference, with Brodhead/Juda of the Rock Valley Conference and New Glarus/Monticello of the Capitol Conference entering as their replacements. The SWC also entered into a scheduling alliance with the South Central Conference as part of the realignment.^[7] However, the SWC instead joined forces with the SWAL to play their football season in the spring 2021 alternate season due to the COVID-19 pandemic with the new alignment taking effect for the fall 2021 season.^[8] In 2022, Lancaster made their return to the SWC, replacing New Glarus/Monticello after their return to the Capitol Conference.^[9] For the current 2024-2025 realignment cycle, New Glarus returned to the SWC to bring football membership to eight schools and nullify the South Central Conference scheduling agreement.^[10] The Southwest Wisconsin Conference will go back to seven football members in 2026 when New Glarus joins the SWAL, along with a new interconference scheduling arrangement with the Eastern Suburban Conference.^[11]

• Southwest Wisconsin Conference (official website)