The league's four remaining members (Fort Dodge, Mason City, and the Waterloo schools) reached out to other large schools in central Iowa to rebuild the conference.
Cedar Falls joined from the Northeast Iowa Conference and Ames, Marshalltown, and Newton joined from the Central Iowa Conference.
The name would be changed back to the Big Eight Conference in 1988 when Waterloo Central, as part of a school district reorganization, was converted to a junior high school.
Among other notable achievements, the league also had a stronghold on the boys' cross country title for 12 years, winning a state title all but one year from 1964 to 1975.
Cedar Falls, Waterloo East, and Waterloo West then joined the Mississippi Valley Conference and Fort Dodge and Mason City, geographic outliers to among the rest of the state's largest schools, followed Marshalltown, Ames, and Newton to the CIML after being originally being declined membership in the league.