Named for its location in the state of Illinois, the South Central Conference was formed in 1926 with 10 schools.
[1] A wave of change occurred in 1944 as Hillsboro, Nokomis, Pana and Taylorville would all leave the South Central for the newly formed Mid State Conference.
In 1967, Feitshans would close and all of attending students would go to the newly constructed Springfield Southeast High School and leave the South Central, moving to the Capitol Conference.
Triad would leave the league in 1993, entering the Mississippi Valley Conference, however, Alton Marquette would take their place that same year.
The league would remain at 12 teams for a dozen years, only changing in 2009 when Gillespie and Staunton would leave for the Prairie State Conference.
Marquette and Wood River would move to the Prairie State, however, when Nokomis backed out of their membership agreement, Roxana was invited to stay in the South Central.
Those schools included; Carlinville, Gillespie, Greenville, Hillsboro, Litchfield, Pana, Roxana, Southwestern, Staunton and Vandalia.
To keep the conference at 10 schools, the South Central reached out to Virden North Mac and they entered the league in 2022.