Across the Bay Conference

The Across the Bay Conference was formed in 2022 as part of the biannual realignment of Wisconsin's high school football conferences by the WIAA in conjunction with the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association.^[1] All eight original members (Algoma, Gibraltar, Gillett, Lena/St. Thomas Aquinas, NEW Lutheran/Oneida Nation/Providence Academy, Sevastopol, Suring and Wausaukee) were previously part of the Marinette & Oconto-Northern Lakes-Packerland Conference (MONLPC) eight-player football conference, with six of the eight members playing in the conference's East Division.^[2][3] It was originally called the Peninsula Conference because of its proximity to the Door Peninsula, a name that was previously used by an athletic conference that existed from 1933 to 1970 in northeastern Wisconsin. In 2024, the Peninsula name was dropped and the conference was rechristened the Across the Bay Conference.^[4] Wausaukee was shifted to the Northeast 8-Player Football Conference as part of the realignment.^[5]

For the 2026-27 competition cycle, the Across the Bay Conference is losing three schools (Gillett, Lena/St. Thomas Aquinas and Suring) to the Northeast 8-Player Football Conference, and the NEW Lutheran cooperative will be losing Oneida Nation to its own stand-alone football program. Two schools will be moving over from the Southeast 8-Player Football Conference (Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah and Valley Christian in Oshkosh) to replace them, and the Across the Bay will be entering into a crossover scheduling alliance with the Northeast 8-Player Football Conference.^[6]