2023 Conference Indiana (what's left of it)

[ptr]

1 minute ago, MuleDriver said:

@ptrcant believe I'm saying this #4 drew crum-heifte looks to have broke  wrist tonite was sutting next to his dad when he weent down . he is probanly our best  dB and plays some offensive snaps .....

.

I'm watching the live video with Seymour announcers and I couldn't make out who is was. An injury to him will really hurt going forward. Not having Taylor certainly has made a difference on the kickoffs.

[southend]

South rolls over castle 

[MuleDriver]

15 hours ago, ptr said:

I'm watching the live video with Seymour announcers and I couldn't make out who is was. An injury to him will really hurt going forward. Not having Taylor certainly has made a difference on the kickoffs.

Drew Crum-Hieftje was all state last year . Unsure the extent of his injury but he did leave the stadium. If we lose him and the loss of our kicker/punter it cast a little doubt on the shot I felt we had at state. Really miss the 40+ yd range the touch backs and punts. The loss of our center has been filled nicely however thebpkayer who filled it was supposed to be a contributor on defense.  This is why it's hard to follow the Panthers these days from my perspective . At any rate best wishes for them moving forward. 

[ptr]

39 minutes ago, MuleDriver said:

Drew Crum-Hieftje was all state last year . Unsure the extent of his injury but he did leave the stadium. If we lose him and the loss of our kicker/punter it cast a little doubt on the shot I felt we had at state. Really miss the 40+ yd range the touch backs and punts. The loss of our center has been filled nicely however thebpkayer who filled it was supposed to be a contributor on defense.  This is why it's hard to follow the Panthers these days from my perspective . At any rate best wishes for them moving forward. 

 

It was not a good week on the injury front losing one of the best kickers in the state to a weightlifting injury and then losing our best DB in Crum-Hieiftje to the arm injury. You may have seen it, but Coach Johnson says it may be something where they can cast it and he can still play, but they just don't know yet. Outside of the injury to our starting center in the 2nd qtr of the season opener, the offense has stayed healthy up till now, and the 0-line has played great, so there is that. Our front seven on defense has stayed healthy and there is a lot of speed there, so there is that also. 

[MuleDriver]

I've read several comments on random threads about the 5a representative from the south bracket at state will not be a bloomington school.  And that ultimately whoever comes from the south bracket will not be able to handle snider. I have no idea since I have not seem snider and I'm far removed from the bhss Panthers. been to like 3  or four games in as many years. And with south being prone to injury as they have been in recent years they may not be a threat to win the state title at this point. But looking at the DC Whiteland match-up im not convinced they are at the level bhss is at this season. like opponents include martinsville who defeated DC and gave Whiteland a good game south handled martinsville with ease . My biggest concern is Evansville North at this point. If souths injurred db is able to play with a cast I would pick them to win the semistate if they get past Evansville  north.  And if we had our kicker still I felt we would have been competitive at state . 

 

[ptr]

Pick'em results from sectional championship play:

LC_Bears_04 (4-0) - 37-5

ptr (4-0) - 37-5

Frozen Tundra (4-0) - 36-6

MuleDriver (4-0) - 30-12

 

Bulldog 15 (no picks) - 30-8

THPD (no picks) - 24-3 (Weeks 3 thru 9)

 

The games involving CI teams went as expected with South the only team left going forward. I'm going to keep this going, but to make things interesting, I'm going to include the other regional game that feeds into the southern semi-state game. Here are the games to pick:

Evansville North @ Bloomington South

Whiteland @ Decatur Central

 

 

[Frozen Tundra]

Evansville North @ Bloomington South

Whiteland @ Decatur Central

[ptr]

Here is the travel schedule for teams that make it to the semi-state in the southern side of the bracket:

A Bloom. South win puts them on the road to either Decatur Central or Whiteland.

An Evansville North win puts them at home against Decatur Central or Whiteland. 

 

 

[MuleDriver]

Evansville North @ Bloomington South

 

Whiteland @ Decatur Central

 

 

[MuleDriver]

Are there any archived games of Evansville north? I hesitated picking bhss since they lost regional last year . Are they a running team? Seems as if the Panthers have difficulty with passing teams. I'm still unsure since I've seen south only once . I favor south at semistate but that's only if they get past e north...... 

[LC_Bears_04]

17 hours ago, ptr said:

Pick'em results from sectional championship play:

LC_Bears_04 (4-0) - 37-5

ptr (4-0) - 37-5

Frozen Tundra (4-0) - 36-6

MuleDriver (4-0) - 30-12

 

Bulldog 15 (no picks) - 30-8

THPD (no picks) - 24-3 (Weeks 3 thru 9)

 

The games involving CI teams went as expected with South the only team left going forward. I'm going to keep this going, but to make things interesting, I'm going to include the other regional game that feeds into the southern semi-state game. Here are the games to pick:

Evansville North @ Bloomington South

Whiteland @ Decatur Central

 

 

 

Bloomington South

Decatur Central

[ptr]

4 hours ago, MuleDriver said:

Are there any archived games of Evansville north? I hesitated picking bhss since they lost regional last year . Are they a running team? Seems as if the Panthers have difficulty with passing teams. I'm still unsure since I've seen south only once . I favor south at semistate but that's only if they get past e north...... 

Go to the following link and then go to "recent" and there are both of Evansville North's sectional games against Floyd Central and Castle that are available, and they were not pay games so anyone can access them.

Southern Indiana Sports Productions (ihsaatv.org)

[ptr]

7 hours ago, MuleDriver said:

Are there any archived games of Evansville north? I hesitated picking bhss since they lost regional last year . Are they a running team? Seems as if the Panthers have difficulty with passing teams. I'm still unsure since I've seen south only once . I favor south at semistate but that's only if they get past e north...... 

I haven't seen any official team stats, but I did a little bit of research and came up with these team stats which have to be extremely close or right on the money. FWIW, there was a running clock in 7 of South's 11 games up to this point with two of those being a running clock to start the 2nd half. Evansville North has had two games and maybe a third game late in the 4th that resulted in a second half running clock. The running clock certainly impacted the team stats with the shortened game and the starters pretty much not playing in the 4th qtr. 

Evansville North has a lot of beef up front with their o-line and it averages a college-like 300 lbs up front. It will be South's speed and quickness on defense against that size. After facing four straight teams whose offense revolved around their passing game, South will finally play a team that relies more with their running game. Just about all teams that South faced this season couldn't run on the Panthers and primarily went to the air, so the secondary got tested a lot this season. 

South averages 207.4 yards per game passing and 164.9 yards rushing.

Ev. North averages 137.8 yards per game passing and 232.3 yards rushing. 

South has had just six turnovers on the season so far to include five picks and one fumble lost. South has not had a turnover in their last three games and I didn't go any farther back on that. 

Ev. North has had 16 turnovers on the season so far to include seven picks and nine fumbles lost.

 

[MuleDriver]

So earlier in this thread I said I wasn't convinced in Whiteland or DC. That was before I knew about dc's qb being out earlier in the season. Hmmm changes my perspective knowing now he was being recruited by UM.  Should be an interesting couple of weeks before state. 

[ptr]

Regional picks:

Evansville North @ Bloomington South - I watched the live 2nd half of the Castle/North game and also the archived first half of the Floyd Central/North game, and the Huskies certainly have some speed in their backfield on offense and the Rucker kid who is 5'9 and 160 lbs almost ran for 300 yards against the Knights and it included back-to-back 50-yard and 70-yard TD runs. With the Huskies relying more on their running game with their big o-line, Rucker and their QB average just over five yards a carry, and their other running back in Northington averages over seven yards per carry. With the Huskies on offense, this game boils down to South's quickness and speed on defense against the Huskies' big o-line and their speedy backfield. After watching the two halves of the games that I mentioned earlier, the Panthers' offense can certainly move the ball against the Huskies' defense and in their game with Castle, the Knights were able to move up and down the field on them to the tune of 433 yards and 50 points. The Huskies also turned the ball over a few times in the Castle game. South lost their star kicker to a season ending injury and they gave up two good returns by Seymour on shorter kickoffs than what we were used to, and we may or may not be without our best DB going into the game because of injury. North has to make the long trip up I-69 and with South playing on their home field, I believe the Panthers will win this game by 10-14 points or better.

Whiteland @ Decatur Central - This will be a rematch of an earlier regular season game between the two Mid-State Conference teams. Whiteland got the better of DC, 31-15, in the third game of the season, and as MuleDriver pointed out, Bo Polston, their starting QB who has received an offer from Michigan, missed that game with injury. Polston returned the following week and DC lost their 2nd game in a row to Martinsville, 25-24, with Polston throwing three picks in that game. The Hawks have not lost since then and have reeled off seven straight wins going into this game. Four of DC's nine wins have been by seven points or less as they competed in probably the most competitive conference in the state this season. Whiteland has gone 5-3 since that DC game and they have won four games in a row going into this game. This will be a competitive game, but with the return game being played at DC, I believe they will get the better of the Warriors in what you might call a revenge game by at least two TDs.

[MuleDriver]

@ptr Is Polston a freshman? 

[ptr]

2 hours ago, MuleDriver said:

@ptr Is Polston a freshman? 

He's a soph this year. 

[Bulldog15]

Bloomington South

Decatur Central

[ptr]

South received some good news and bad news. South DB Drew Crum-Hieftje is done for the season and his high school football career is over with due to the broken arm. Coach Johnson had hoped it would be something they could cast and have him play, but it was not to be.

Surprisingly, at least to me, South kicker Bryce Taylor is expected to play. I thought his season was over with considering the broken collar bone, but evidently it wasn't as serious as I thought. He's been a big weapon for South with his strong leg.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by ptr

[MuleDriver]

3 hours ago, ptr said:

South received some good news and bad news. South DB Drew Crum-Hieftje is done for the season and his high school football career is over with due to the broken arm. Coach Johnson had hoped it would be something they could cast and have him play, but it was not to be.

Surprisingly, at least to me, South kicker Bryce Taylor is expected to play. I thought his season was over with considering the broken collar bone, but evidently it wasn't as serious as I thought. He's been a big weapon for South with his strong leg.

 

 

any idea who will replace the injured db? 

[ptr]

35 minutes ago, MuleDriver said:

any idea who will replace the injured db? 

No, there was nothing that I saw about that. It's probably something we will find out on game night. As it's been pointed out, the Huskies are primarily a running team, so it may not be that big of a problem at least for this game. 

[MuleDriver]

Game went about as I had thought. With our all state db out for the season e north passed the ball a bit . Going to be tough next week at decatur central. With them rolling over Whiteland like they did and our pass defense weakened it will definately be an uphill battle. 

[ptr]

13 minutes ago, MuleDriver said:

Game went about as I had thought. With our all state db out for the season e north passed the ball a bit . Going to be tough next week at decatur central. With them rolling over Whiteland like they did and our pass defense weakened it will definately be an uphill battle. 

It was Crum-Hieftje's replacement that got beat on the 87-yard TD pass in the 4th, but fortunately, the game was pretty much decided by that time. Since the game wasn't video streamed, I don't know how the kid did for the entire game, but the Huskies are a running team first. When they said Bryce Taylor was a go for the game, it turned out that he was limited to just kickoffs, but he kept North's speedy kick returners from getting the chance for big runbacks, something that Seymour was able to do a couple of times last week. The Perez kid, a backup running back, has done the extra points for South in place of Taylor and he hasn't missed yet on them. 

With WVNI not carrying the game for some reason, I had to listen to Joe Smith's play-by-play account and was wanting to pull my hair out for the entire game. As you pointed out, he's a really nice guy and I have talked to him some over the years, but listening to him calling the game was brutal, and for me, it was cruel and unusual punishment. I don't know how many times he would talk about a play and not tell you where the ball was at until after South had run two or three plays. He would also often keep you guessing at down and distance and if you are lucky, he might tell you how much time was left in the quarter. There were a couple of times where South had a huge gainer, and they would run couple of plays after that and he failed to tell you where the ball was at.  I had to dust off my crystal ball to try to see if I could come up with some of the game details.

[MuleDriver]

9 hours ago, ptr said:

I had to dust off my crystal ball to try to see if I could come up with some of the game details.

I asked on the siac thread what radio station was covering for Evansville  and I listened there ..... 

[ptr]

@MuleDriver

I watched the archived Decatur Central/Whiteland regional championship game yesterday. Not having seen either team play this season until yesterday, I was surprised to see both teams having their QB under center for much of the game that I watched, and especially in the first half. I watched just the first three quarters since DC had a big lead going into the 4th and I didn't see the need to watch anymore of it. DC stayed under center in their opening possession of the game, and did nothing but hand the ball off to one of their RB either right into the gut of the line or off both tackle spots and they picked up one big gain after another and they scored their first TD without putting the ball in the air (if my memory is correct.) They passed the ball just two times (again my memory) up until late in the first half when they went to the shotgun down inside the Whiteland red zone. In the first qtr, Whiteland was under center and had some nice runs, and scored on a long TD run when their RB ran right up the middle and broke the line of scrimmage and had clear sailing for the TD which would be their only score of the game. The Warriors did have occasional nice runs during the game but it was between the 30-yard lines and they never really threatened to score again. Nothing in-depth there on my part, but it was what I saw on the surface in the game. Here's the link to the archived game if you want to take a look:

Decatur Central (ihsaatv.org)