North Schuylkill's Caden Mengel tries to run around a Notre Dame defender .(Photo by Justin Reed / Skook News).

Schuylkill League votes to have 14-team football league starting in 2026

TAMAQUA — The Schuylkill/Colonial Football Cooperative will end after the 2025 season.

After weeks of rumors and speculation, the Schuylkill League athletic directors and league officers officially approved the formation of a 14-team Schuylkill League for football for the 2026-27 seasons during an emergency meeting Friday morning at Tamaqua Area High School. The motion passed by an 11-3 vote.

According to multiple sources, the new Schuylkill Football League will be split into two divisions based on enrollment, with the Class 3A and 4A schools in one division and the Class AA and A schools in the other:

Division I — Blue Mountain, North Schuylkill, Panther Valley, Pine Grove, Pottsville, Tamaqua

Division II — Mahanoy Area, Marian, Minersville, Nativity, Schuylkill Haven, Shenandoah Valley, Tri-Valley, Williams Valley

There are no mandatory crossover games, although it’s likely Division I schools like Panther Valley, Pine Grove and Tamaqua will play schools in the smaller division to continue current local rivalries.

Division I teams will have five league games and five non-league games, while Division II teams will have seven league games and three non-league games. The league contests will come at the end of the season, with Week 10 being utilized as a Rivalry Week.

Each school will be responsible for finding their own non-league games.

“We’re looking inside of our league to fill those open dates first and there are some other leagues, including the Colonial League, that are willing to help us and assist us with the open dates on those weeks,” Schuylkill League president Dr. Stephen Toth said Friday. He said the league’s athletic directors will meet again next week to discuss filling open dates on the schedule.

Rumors of the cooperative’s demise began circulating at the end of the 2024 regular season after several Colonial League schools in Division I of the Schuylkill/Colonial Cooperative publicly expressed their desire to leave the cooperative, citing travel concerns.

The move Friday also ends concerns over the future of the four Schuylkill League big schools in the cooperative — Blue Mountain, North Schuylkill, Pottsville and Tamaqua — who may have been forced to leave the Schuylkill League in every sport if they joined another conference for football.

The Schuylkill League by-laws prevent schools from competing in another league for just one sport, a basic all-or-nothing format.

“Schuylkill League football is alive and well,” Toth said. “The way that it was presented today at the meeting and the outcome, every school is about 95 percent satisfied. I’ll take that.

“We’re very pleased with the outcome as a league.”

The Schuylkill League had a two-division football league from 2016-19 after Pottsville left the Berks League and the Anthracite Football League dissolved.

The 28-team Schuylkill/Colonial Football Cooperative was formed in January 2020 but didn’t go into full effect until the 2021 season due to COVID-19. The cooperative originally had a four-division format, but switched to a 9-9-10, three-division format for the 2024-25 seasons.