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The pic IO posted looks VERY similar to what my older dog left me under my Christmas tree a few days ago. Great holiday memories.

Marginalized or not, I think the southwest corner of our great state represents us well on the gridiron--they also have some fine looking honeys as I conned one into walking down the aisle with me!

If you define a "chip" as feeling ignored and disrespected by the rest of the state, then I would say, Yes we have a chip. It even extends to the fact we bristle when someone refers to Bloomington as southern Indiana. I remember being extremely annoyed when Rex Grossman was referred to as hailing from southern Indiana by national media when he was a UF and with the Bears. I will point out two possible overlooked reasons why I think the chip exists and how it pertains to football. 1. It is probably an overlooked fact, but the lack of direct route to Indianapolis caused a lot of the disconnect. I remember in HS a classmate doing a persuasive speech on why an Indy-Evansville interstate should exist (recently built as I-69). He threw up a slide of a wagon wheel missing a spoke, and then superimposed the state of Indiana over the top. I-70 E-W, I-65 NW to SE, I-74 in between those two, and I-69 from Indy and NE. It really stood out as Evansville was largely ignored. At least 2-3 generations heard that the IndyEvv highway was going to be built without it ever happening. About 10 years ago, going to Indianapolis from Evansville seemed like travelling to a completely other state. It was much easier to get from Evansville to St. Louis, Louisville, or Nashville than it was to our own state capitol. It just added to the disconnect between areas. It's hard to explain exactly how big of a deal the completion of the interstate was to this part of the state. 2. Something I think has impacted SW Indiana football that is often overlooked is that the University of Evansville discontinued its football program in the late 90's. There are currently 3 colleges south of I-70 that play football: Hanover, IU, and Franklin. I think it has been an out of sight/out of mind sort of impact on the SW Indiana region. Marian played for a national championship last week, and St. Francis in the last few years before that. Both really went unnoticed down here. HS football players don't really grow up thinking about playing at the collegiate level. Your upper echelon players will still go play, but that next step down (D2, D3, NAIA level) is not as deep in numbers. And the NFL is almost non-existent. Ben Braunecker (Forest Park) is currently playing for the Bears. Before him - Cutler??? I think was the last NFL player from SW Indiana. And he was a 2001? HS graduate. There haven't been Jaylon Smiths, Tyler Eifert, or Rod Smiths come out of Evansville area lately. My argument would be that there could have been - if the goal of playing college football had been in the forefront. To answer your original question. Adding a tradition-rich program like Jasper is a big boost to the conference as a whole. VL is another school with successful teams over its history that adds long-term scheduling stability. I don't think they raise the profile of the conference to number 3 conference status any time soon, but it is definitely on the rise.

They have 2 Sectional Championships, 2 Regional Championships, and 1 State Championship over the last two decades. Those aren't staggering numbers by any means, but they do have one heck of a winning percentage over the same time period. I think that's enough to qualify them as a Blue Blood considering their past. You like the idea of an "island" conference? It certainly makes scheduling easier, but then it puts those conferences in a bubble like the SAC. Which is fine I guess if you are satisfied with the competition.

As long as conferences are based primarily on scheduling convenience and geographic proximity, rather than competitive reasons, I think conferences in general - and especially 10 school conferences — are bad for football. The inability to schedule out of conference games that might be more competitive detracts from the quality of football generally, a cause that I thought you were championing.

Finally, a conversation of interest! Looks like it was pinched off, I'm going with turd. This is a pile of shit.

Just to clarify........Is that a turd, or a pile of sh*t?

Great post. I understand access from Indy to Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Fort Wayne. But why Champaign? Access to Evansville should have been given priority over Champaign. And certainly Ft. Wayne to Chicago makes more sense than Indy to Champaign.

I CANNOT LIKE THIS STATEMENT ENOUGH I believe our tackling the last few years has also improved greatly and we also do not live to ground at all. We use wheels, non contact drills to emphasis technique, lots of reps on angles both as team and within position groups.

Convinction? Is that the liberal MSM spelling of "conviction"?

You missed the point. Howe must announce to the forum that he somehow knows the mind of "black" people better than everyone else at least once a year. Black people must be some kind of group that all think and act the same to Howe by the way he talks. sad.