The 2020 football season in the NUIC will mark the beginning of an era in some places and the end of an era in others, often within the same program.

Three new coaches take over programs in the NUIC South, with Scott Payne at Amboy-LaMoille, John Kutz at AFC and Teo Clark at West Carroll. Clark replaces Matt Leitzen, who left to take over at Stockton, one of two new coaches in the NUIC North along with Orangeville’s Steve Snider.

This will also be the last year of 11-man football for Aquin, Orangeville, AFC, Amboy-LaMoille and Milledgeville, who will join the ranks of 8-man football in 2021.

For the conference’s new coaches, Week 1 kicks off their coaching tenures with crossover games at South Division fields.

West Carroll opens the Clark era with Galena, Payne’s first game leading the Clippers comes at home against Durand-Pecatonica, and Kutz coaches his first game with the Raiders at home against East Dubuque. Snider takes his Broncos to Aquin, while Leitzen and the Blackhawks head to Milledgeville.

For the Clippers, even once Du-Pec, a playoff team in 2019, leaves town, things don’t get any easier. The next few weeks involve a trip to the Panther Bowl to face defending Class 1A state champion Lena-Winslow, followed by a home game against Forreston, a trip to West Carroll, and a home game with Aquin. That’s five playoff teams from 2019 in the first five weeks of the 2020 season.

“We’ve just got to go out there and compete,” Payne said. “Lena-Winslow, they’re always competing for state, and Forreston’s always really good. We’ve just got to take each game one game at a time and anything can happen.”

While the Clippers get the Panthers Week 2, Eastland-Pearl City will face them Week 1 in Pearl City.

“Whenever you play Lena first game, it might be better than playing them Week 9,” EPC coach Jared McNutt said. “Everybody’s starting fresh. I think it will be a true test for our guys to find out where we are as a team with all the new faces we’re going to have. We graduated quite a few last year on both sides of the ball. I’m really eager to see where we stack up against the best-of-the-best right away.”

The Raiders open with East Dubuque, a team who went 2-7 last year.

“I hope the kids come out ready to play, focused, prepared,” Kutz said. “There’s a lot of new faces in the conference this year. We’re prepared and we’re going to be ready to go.”

The next four games for AFC see one playoff team after another, with a stretch of Orangeville, Stockton, Forreston and West Carroll.

“That’s a tough stretch I had circled when I accepted the job,” Kutz said. “I believe there’s a few new faces at those programs. They also graduated some seniors. It’s the toughest conference in 1A, so it’s going to be a tough navigation.”

Amboy-LaMoille and AFC play their last 11-man regular season games against each other, at Amboy on October 23.

AFC gets other soon-to-be 8-man programs late in the season with a Week 6 home date with Milledgeville and a Week 7 trip to Aquin. Amboy will host EPC Week 8.

“Of course, our No. 1 goal every year is to make the playoffs,” Payne said. “So it’d be nice to get into the playoffs and send us out on a good note that way.”

EPC will face Milledgeville Week 4 in Milledgeville, the last meeting of the two schools in football before the Missiles decamp for 8-man football in 2021.

“I think there’s a lot of tradition, especially with Milledgeville,” McNutt said. “I know Eastland had a great tradition and they played EPC the past many years, and then our rival in Aquin, we don’t play them every single year, but last year it was a real game they put us through. It’ll be different knowing it’ll be the last time that we go there and play.”

The Missiles close out their regular season with another team playing its last regular-season 11-man football game when they travel to Orangeville.

EPC, meanwhile, closes the regular season at home against Forreston. It was a Cardinals goal-line stand in the fourth quarter of the teams’ Week 9 matchup last season in Forreston, followed by a long drive to wind down the clock, that kept EPC out of the playoffs at 4-5.