IHSA Football Finals To Alternate Sites

With the Big Ten Conference's expansion from 11 collegiate instutions to 12 (adding Nebraska), it created a schedule conflict regarding the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Currently, the Illinois High School Association State Football Finals take place on the Friday and Saturdays after Thanksgiving at the University of Illinois's Memoria Stadium. Starting in 2013, the IHSA Football Finals will need to be held elsewhere during odd-numbered years. The Universitty of Illinois will be hosting a home football game in odd-numbered years.

The IHSA Football Finals have been held at Memorial Stadium since 2000.

"We are certainly disappointed, but very understanding," said IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman in a press release. "The University of Illinois has given us a world-class facility in Memorial Stadium to contest our state finals and the entire Champaign-Urbana community has offered a first-class atmosphere for the competing schools and fans. We look forward to returning the IHSA Football State Finals to Memorial Stadium every other year and will begin to investigate other potential sites to host the finals in the years that the University of Illinois is unable to host."

Illinois State University's Hancock Stadium hosted the Footbal Finals from 1974 to 1999, with Northwestern's Dyche Stadium hosting Class 5A-6A from 1981 to 1984.