The 2023 Fox River Classic Conference Football season is officially underway. August 1 marked the start of the 17th season of football played under the FRCC banner. The FRCC consisted of 12 schools at its inception in 2007 and remained at 12 schools through the 2014 season. With the start of the 2015 school year Green Bay East and Green Bay West left the FRCC and joined the Bay Conference leaving the FRCC with 10 teams. The conference remained at 10 teams through the 2019 season. There was no traditional season in 2020 because of the Covid Pandemic.
2021 marked the return of Green Bay East and Green Bay West to the FRCC along with the additions of Menasha and West De Pere in a football-only conference. With the addition of these teams the FRCC split into two divisions (FRCC North and FRCC South) consisting of seven teams each.
North Division: Ashwaubenon, Bay Port, De Pere, Green Bay Preble, Green Bay Southwest, Pulaski, and West De Pere.
South Division: Green Bay West, Green Bay East, Manitowoc Lincoln, Menasha, Notre Dame Academy, Sheboygan North and Sheboygan South.
Bay Port is the defending champion of the FRCC North. Qualifying for the WIAA State Play-offs in Division 1 Bay Port was eliminated in the fourth round by eventual state champion Kimberly 42-21. The runner-up in the FRCC North, West De Pere, with their only loss coming at the hands of Bay Port (27-34) qualified in the Division 2 field and made it to the State Championship game losing to Kettle Moraine 27-10. De Pere (Division 1) and Pulaski (Division 2) were both eliminated in the first round of the play-offs.
Menasha is the two time defending champion of the FRCC South. Menasha and the runner-up of the FRCC South Notre Dame both qualified for the WIAA State Play-off field in Division 3. Losing to Menasha during conference play, Notre Dame was able to turn the tables on Menasha and eliminated them from the play-offs in the second round 26-21. Notre Dame was then eliminated by West Salem in the third round. Sheboygan North, the other qualifier for the play-offs from the FRCC South was beaten in the first round.
The FRCC will again have a North and South Division for the 2023 season consisting of the teams listed earlier in this article. Teams will play two non-conference games to start the season and then will play a seven game conference schedule consisting of six games against the other teams in their division and one crossover game (which does not count in the final standings) against a team from the other division. The season gets under way on Thursday, August 17. Click here to see the football schedule for FRCC schools.
