The future of the MAFC? That's anybody's guess

Enjoy the Mississippi Area Football Conference while you can. It won't be around much longer.

Hillsboro announced this week that it's leaving the 19-team mega-league to become an independent next season. Herculaneum and five other MAFC Blue Division schools are bolting after this season. Farmington left last year.

Who's left? And what will they do? Good question.

Representatives of each of the league's remaining teams will meet Monday to hash out a future for the conference, if there is one. Speculation varies about which teams will go where and which will be left hung out to dry.

What we do know: Five of the six teams in the Blue Division — Crystal City, Grandview, St. Pius X, St. Vincent and Valle — announced in September they will leave to form their own conference. They'll be joined in that new league by Herculaneum from the White Division.

And we know Hillsboro will leave the Red Division, citing its lack of ability to compete with larger schools Fox and Seckman. It will play as an independent next year unless more teams bolt from the MAFC and create a new league that could include Hillsboro.

Hillsboro's move leaves DeSoto, Festus, Fox, Seckman and Windsor as a regional cluster in the Red Division, along with North County to their south. Farmington left the Red Division last year to join the SEMO Conference.

Herculaneum's departure leaves Fredericktown, Park Hills Central, Perryville, Potosi and Ste. Genevieve in the White Division.

Rumblings from the remaining MAFC members signal doubt for the existing league's future — coaches and athletic directors have complained about travel, parity and scheduling issues that resulted from the formation of the MAFC, and the sudden rats-off-a-sinking-ship escape of seven teams in two years could be the sign of what's to come.

Now we wait to see who's next.