Boiler Boog

I’m curious if anyone has a breakdown of his TD by half. I bet he had 45-50 in the first half. Like you said, they typically had starters pulled midway through Q3. The only game I remember with starters in the 4th qtr was Moeller.

When I was coaching, everyone just ran whatever they knew or got help from some of the other coaches at the parish who were coaching the older teams. I had never coached before when my son started playing in 3rd grade but our team didn't have a coach, so I volunteered. I was fortunate enough to be related to the OC for East Central at the time, so I just used what they were using for their youth program. Then I just passed that down to any other new coaches who needed help and were in the same position I was when I started. I stopped being the head coach after the 6th grade year and during my son's cadet years, the new head coaches tried to model our offense in some ways on the zone blocking schemes that Cathedral uses. I know they were able to talk to the high school coaches and get help with the schemes. So, it can happen but for the most part it's just coaches running what they know how to run. I'd imagine it's challenging Freshman year at the Catholic Schools when they bring in kids from all of these different schools who have all run different offenses. Probably takes them longer to "gel" than kids at a public school who have been running the bones of the high school offense already for a few years.

The CYO has a formula which I wasn't a big fan of. CYO Guru touched on it but essentially, they count points for each player, player size (stripers) and school size. I always had issues with them counting the school size in the formula. You don't have to be in the school to play for a CYO team, just in the parish. It creates a weird situation where some parishes like the one I went to were medium sized but had a big school (where pretty much everyone in the parish sends their kids to school there) and got the same amount of points as a giant Parish like OLMC that draws a bigger portion of it's players from outside of the school itself. I also felt like they essentially are double counting by factoring in both school size and roster size because, in theory, if you have a big school or parish then you will have a greater number of players on your roster....but they count both in the formula. In my mind, either place based on parish size or roster size but don't count both.

Outside of Lawrenceburg, Dearborn county is pretty rural and hasn't really changed a lot since I graduated back in 2000. The school enrollment is still about the same too. It's crazy how big EC's school district is in order for them to be 4A. It takes almost 45 minutes to drive from certain points of the school district.

That's good to see they have such strong numbers. In Indy, CYO numbers have been down. A few years ago they switched 3rd and 4th grade to 7 on 7 because the numbers were declining. A few years ago my son's school had a team for each grade and now they don't even have enough for a combined 7/8th grade team. Declining numbers seem to be a trend....good to see EC is bucking that trend.

That's what I figured. I try and watch the games online as much as I can and noticed that they had a freshman running back getting carries in some of the games. I guess the nice thing is they have been up big in pretty much all of the games that they have been able to get lots of game reps to the younger players. I just assume they will reload every year. The one thing that my friends and family talk about is how good the youth program has gotten in the past 10-15 years. When I was growing up, it was just a 4 team in house league. Quite a few of us actually played for the Harrison youth team because you got to play teams from throughout Cincy. Some of my buddies help coach on the youth teams now and it sounds like the youth program is top notch to the point where they just produce consistently good players.

Thanks. I'm guessing Chatard will move up to 4A and if EC goes to 5A, the 4A landscape will be quite different. How do you think they will be next year? I have relatives on the team and coaching staff but I live in Indy so I don't follow them as much as I used to. I had heard that this senior class was the best in school history, so I assume there will be a drop off but EC always seems to reload. I had heard a few coaches may be moving on (I know one for sure will be). Just curious how the vibes are for next year.

Question for the group....I'm not very familiar with the IHSAA success factor formula. Is it every two years they apply it? If EC were to make it to Semi-State, would that push them to 5A next year? I thought I remembered reading somewhere that if you get 6 points in a 2 year window you move up. I thought I saw that winning state is 4 points and if they win regional this year that would get them 2 points. Does the success factor apply to public schools or just private schools?

Just going off what I though Dan told me at wrestling meet. Thought a bunch of your line+ Skill position guys went there. My bad if I’m off in the count. Either way, you guys dominated in CYO for that age and the guys I knew for sure that went there are ballers

You guys are definitely deep on the freshman team. I had some pretty solid players I coached in CYO on that team that aren’t even able to see the field because of how good the starters are. From what I know they are really deep at QB too. They also have a lineman from St. matthews. (not sure if he is playing O or D) who gave us nightmares last year. I joked with one of the dads of a kid I coached on the freshman team and told him his son might be a part of a state championship team every year he is in high school. As for you running back, the kid has everything. His speed is ridiculous and he breaks a million tackles a game but the thing that always impressed me about him was his vision and his cutbacks. He’s a threat to take it to the house every time he touches it.

I graduated from East Central in 2000. Still have some family members on the coaching staff and the team. So what still follow them. When I graduated from college I moved to Carmel. Started coaching CYO when my son was in 3rd grade and moved up every year with him through 8th grade last year. So I’ve seen pretty much all the Indy CYO teams a few times. Barnabas and St. Mike were the two dominant teams in our age. All the Barnabas kids go to Roncalli and apparently most of the St Mike kids went to Chatard this year. Barnabas also had a good class the year above my son along with St Roch being pretty good. So I’d expect Roncalli to have some pretty good classes and Chatard to be really strong. Trust me, when the current freshmen are seniors, Chatard will have a Mr. Football candidate at running back. So that’s how I ended up as a dual East Central/Northside Catholic School guy.

I think Chatard wins this handily and wins 3A this year. They are going to be tough for the next several years. I could honestly see them winning state this year, moving up to 4A and possibly winning it once or twice in the next couple of years. I coached CYO for several years with the class that is now Freshmen and know some of the players/parents of Freshmen and Sophomore class. The freshman team is stacked. According to the parents I know they beat everyone this year including Cathedral. When I was coaching, there were 2 players that were head and shoulders above everyone else in CYO, and 1 went to Chatard (believe the other is at Roncalli) and is apparently dominating. They also have a ton of the other really good CYO players. The JV team is also really good from what I saw. They are going to be tough for years to come.

As an EC grad from the late 90s, they have done a lot to improve the strength of schedule. Back then we used to just play the EIAC teams, Harrison (Ohio) then another random team or two. Being based in far SE Indiana, we were always the biggest school in the area so I don't think we got as much recognition because we were beating smaller schools and not playing teams from Indy unless it was in semi-state. Over the years they have been trying to add more Ohio teams or some Indy teams like Geurin, Roncalli and Chatard. I think that has helped finally put the program on the radar for people throughout the state. I think they will continue to roll teams this year and win state again. I'm curious to see how things will look going forward though. I live in Indy now but have relatives on the team/coaching staff. I had been told a while back that this senior class was probably the best class the school has ever had. I also heard that they will be losing several coaches next year at various levels that have been with the program for a while but will be moving on. I'm sure they will continue to dominate the EIAC but they might be down for a couple of years (by EC standards).