Finishing our look back at the decade that was in 4A football, today we focus on the Mississippi Valley Conference. Like the Mississippi Athletic Conference, these teams only play against each other during the regular season and all games are conference games. However, there are 14 teams, so they are split up into two divisions, the Mississippi and the Valley. Each division obviously has seven teams, and they shuffle them around every two years just to mix it up a little. Each team plays all the other six teams in their division and three from the other division to make up their nine game regular season. Let’s take a look at the numbers for each school from 2000-2009…
Overall Conference/Regular Season Record 2000-2009:
Cedar Falls 78-12 (three undefeated seasons)
Iowa City High 76-14 (four undefeated seasons)
Cedar Rapids Washington 63-27 (two undefeated seasons)
Cedar Rapids Xavier 59-31 (one undefeated season)
Cedar Rapids Prairie 57-33
Dubuque Hempstead 57-33
Cedar Rapids Kennedy 50-40
Dubuque Wahlert 41-49
Iowa City West 36-54
Waterloo West 34-56
Cedar Rapids Jefferson 31-59 (one undefeated season)
Linn-Mar 28-62
Dubuque Senior 16-74
Waterloo East 4-86
No surprise here with Cedar Falls and Iowa City High at the top of the list. These two schools are fixtures in the playoffs and both have rock solid programs. How about CR Jeff having an undefeated season inside of only 31 wins for the decade? In 2000, they were 9-0, but haven’t finished better than 4-5 since. Waterloo East didn’t win a game for the first six and a half years of the decade. A 50+ losing streak buried them. Seven 0-9 seasons in the decade…Amazing. Let’s hope they fare much better in the next ten years.
Here are the postseason/playoff numbers for these schools…
Postseason/Playoff Records 2000-2009:
School, Substate Record, Playoff Record, Years Qualified
Iowa City High 2-0, 13-8, 9 (four semifinals, two finals, ONE TITLE 09)
Cedar Falls 2-0, 12-8, 8 (three semifinals, two finals)
Cedar Rapids Xavier 2-0, 7-5, 6 (one semifinal, one final, ONE TITLE 06)
Cedar Rapids Washington 2-0, 7-6, 6 (two semifinals, one final)
Iowa City West 0-1, 3-2, 2 (one semifinal)
Cedar Rapids Kennedy 1-1, 1-4, 4
Dubuque Hempstead 2-0, 1-4, 4
Linn-Mar 1-0, 0-1, 1
Cedar Rapids Jefferson 0-1, 0-1, 1
Dubuque Wahlert 1-0, 0-2, 2
Cedar Rapids Prairie 1-1, 0-7, 7
Again, no surprise with the success of Iowa City High and Cedar Falls. But how about Xavier breaking through with a title in 2006 and Washington making it to a final as well? Also, it’s kind of overlooked that Iowa City West made the semis in 2002. The hard luck award goes to Prairie, though. Always decent, sometimes very good, but 0-for-the-decade in the playoffs. Seven times in, seven losses. That is hard to accomplish.
That does it for 4A. Here are some current streaks to end on…
Overall Win Streak:
14- Iowa City High. Last loss: 27-3 Cedar Rapids Xavier Nov 3, 2008
Regular Season Win Streak:
19- Iowa City High. Last loss: 20-3 Cedar Falls Oct 19, 2007
Conference Win Streak:
19- Iowa City High. Last loss: 20-3 Cedar Falls Oct 19, 2007
Overall Losing Streak:
14- Davenport North. Last win: 30-6 Davenport West Sept 19, 2008
Conference Losing Streak:
14- Davenport North. Last win: 30-6 Davenport West Sept 19, 2008
Non-Playoff Teams Ending Season w/Winning Streak:
1- Muscatine
