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All of these plans assume the premise the only way to have a successful season is to win a championship. There are other ways to measure success. High school sports are much more than just winning championships. My children all had wonderful high school athletics experiences and the most they won was a sectional championship. I've never officiated a state championship and probably never will. It doesn't mean I consider my officiating career a failure.

Ha! Can't speak for other posters but I have a few friends who tell me to keep them updated on offers via this thread. I guess it's easier than messaging them separately.

That is a major accomplishment in and of itself. I still vividly remember BNL's Sectional title in 2011.

DT classification systems shouldn't be created as a response to a couple schools it should be developed in a way that benefits most (if not all) schools in a similar fashion. Your breakdown takes a class where the smallest school is about 40% of the biggest, by creating two classes where one group gets a gap thats about 49% while the other class has a gap it's about 75%. That's hardly an equitable split for the teams in your top breakdown. An equitable break down puts Carmel, BD, and Warren in a class, and the other 29 in their own class. Obviously that's incredibly silly to do such a thing. The IHSAA would be better off keeping the same 32 setup but lumping the three in their own sectional along with North Central. But obviously there are financial implications of such a move.

I didn’t intend to suggest that consolidation, resulting in decreased athletic opportunities, was the only reason for the increase in ever-younger single sport specialization. But as you pointed out, there are other factors as well. That makes it extremely unlikely that any studies of the effects of school consolidation on specialization could be properly designed.

I don't worry about it. In my experience, the families that are most concerned about this type of thing find a parochial school or a smaller public school. I also don't think it's that much of a problem since school consolidation will likely create more opportunities to be on a team. A decade ago, Elkhart Central used to have an abysmal freshman football team. We're talking 15-16 kids (with a couple sophomores thrown in there, they were always up front about it). That's not fun, and I wouldn't describe it as an opportunity. I would imagine that the freshman football team at Elkhart High School is a lot of fun to be a part of now. It helps that they have a good program in place (which should increase participation on its own in theory), but the team would also logically have more potential players. The opportunity to participate is different than the opportunity to start. If we focus on football only, and even at the largest schools, nearly every player that makes it through their senior year should have had ample opportunity at a starting position. If they didn't end up starting then they probably weren't able to perform at the necessary level. I don't want to disparage guys who don't or didn't start, but how many of those guys (hedging a little) would have started somewhere else anyway? I get what you're saying to some degree with sports that have smaller teams. But I would apply logic similar to the football example to this problem. When you're cutting down to a manageable, reasonably sized basketball team or a hockey team or whatever, you're going to have a handful of guys that you know are automatically making the team. They're just that much better, faster, bigger, stronger etc. The bottom is usually pretty easy to cut away too. Kids that can't run, throw, jump, etc. The bubble is where you might lose some opportunity to be on the team and usually there is very little to distinguish the bubble guys from each other - which is how you end up on the bubble anyway. Anyway it's worthy of discussion. But have any studies suggested that school consolidation -> increased specialization? This does seem like a safe, common sense assumption, but usually consolidation is considered to lead to an increase in athletic and other extracurricular activity. Coaches, parents, the private coaching industry with travel sports industry (in other sports, but I guess 7 on 7 now) and the lure of scholarships are more likely culprits for specialization in my opinion. We could dance around the idea that more potential players and fewer spots (consolidation) allows for coaches to demand specialization, or for parents to encourage it, but from what I've seen I'd be less likely to point to consolidation as the driver of specialization, while I am willing to concede that it might be a factor. Most of the time in school coaches were the culprit when it came to forcing better players to specialize, and players did out of fear of retribution. They weren't the players that were at risk of getting cut because they couldn't play. Just an example of why I'm discussing this, but in my current line of work I can think of experiences with a handful of families with 10, 11, 12, 13 year old boys that have considered specializing or do specialize in hockey only. In Indiana. And it's not like they're the best players either. The best players are, of course, the best athletes. I totally agree with you on the destructive and limiting aspects of specialization, and I do everything I can to discourage it.

Maybe the entire school corporation doesn't revolve around football? I realize this is a football board but you have to realize there are far more significant factors in such decisions.

Ben Johnson runs his own Credit recovery business.

That guy needs to read more books and attend more clinics.

I think they are both great conferences.

I’ll speculate and probably step out of my lane (pun intended). Having one guy in charge of both programs makes it a 365 day per year ordeal. You can see your athletes nearly on a daily basis without violating any IHSAA protocols and work with them to improve their athletic profile. I’ve met many egocentric coaches (more so in football than track) who brainwash the “specialization” nonsense along with threatening fall playing time. I feel it’s gotten worse with the evolution of spring 7 on 7. Man kids feel like they are missing out and falling behind if they play a spring sport...and it’s hard to do both effectively. From purely a physiological standpoint, there is never anything wrong with improving your speed, strength, agility, reaction time, etc from participation in track and field in the spring. It’s only going to help you in the fall.

I'm done with this conversation. You guys brought it up and I made a case. I will end with this: HCC would probably win head to head (will never know) SAC is probably better pound for pound (speculation) Both conferences play darn good football. Much respect for HCC and their continual climb toward Central Indiana supremacy.

It was 14-7 Carmel at the half and the final was 31-7. Complete domination by Carmel. I watched that game as I was hoping Homestead could pull off the upset. Missing their best player wasn't the difference for the Spartans. It was the complete domination of Carmel's lines. The Hoosier Crossroads is a Conference made up of Homestead's and Carroll's. It's not really surprising when a bottom feeder of the HCC (Noblesville) can compete with an SAC school.

Success and improvement are functions of expectations. For probably 75% of the schools in the state, a state championship is an unrealistic expectation. Part of strategic improvement is setting realistic interim goals and checking them off one by one. A winning season, a conference championship, sectional titles, etc. There are many measuring sticks for improvement. We “fans” may not be interested in anything but rings, but that doesn’t mean the coaches or kids feel the same way. So, they’re not “sunk” by any realistic measuring stick.

Well that was another multi-million dollar waste of time, at the taxpayer's expense of course.

I am happy to help answer this for you. In 2018, Elkhart Community Schools filed paperwork with the IHSAA letting them know that beginning with the 2020-2021 school year, Elkhart Memorial and Elkhart Central High schools would be competitive together as one Elkhart Hish School. Construction had not yet been completed, leaving the new high school to operate out of two campuses. Construction has since been completed and, beginning in the 2021-2022 school year, Elkhart High school will house grades 10-12 at its West Campus (formerly Elkhart Memorial HS) and 9th grade students at East Campus (formerly Elkhart Central HS). Football games will continue to be played at Rice Field, located at the East Campus.

What I’d really like to add to it is private schools would only be allowed in 6A, 4A, & 2A. But from a safety standpoint 1A rosters would benefit from that bye week.

A dude that vocalizes his lack of support for Homestead yet then cites their “emotions” on a bus ride to a contest.

6A & 1A. Should be 32 teams. 6A because of enrollment gaps. 1A because of roster sizes. A bye week would help small rosters of 30-40 players more than 5A 70-100 player rosters.

Most all re-alignments involve travel headaches. Having Elkhart and Valpo or conversely Penn and Homestead play on a yearly basis won’t solve everything, improvement comes from within.

The time zone thing is a big deal and will school boards and ADs sign off on this?

I'm by no means an insider but I went there and also follow the program from afar also. Historically, the program has had cycles where they were competitive at a state-championship level. For whatever reason, they seemed stronger at the end of most decades as they won state in 1988, lost at state in 1998, and won state again in 2008. They were also pretty good in seasons around those runs like 1989, 1997, and obviously 2019-2020. So while they have not been competing for state titles every year, they have had intermittent success historically. They have had some really talented classes come through lately to win the three straight titles but from what I hear the cupboard isn't bare moving forward. 3A will certainly be another level. Western Boone has played 3A before but hasn't won so much as a sectional. I think maybe they were in 3A for 6 or 8 seasons prior to the last 4. Unfortunately, even when they were good, they were often in a sectional with Chatard, West Lafayette, or another state finalist like Hamilton Heights or Tri-West. I don't know the plans of the coach. His dad coached for a long time at Speedway so hopefully he has similar plans at Western Boone but I can't claim any inside knowledge there. I will say that there are things at Western Boone that other coaches spend years trying to build up in other communities. It's a rural, farming community and many of the kids that have played in the program stick around as adults/parents and care about the program. Parent participation in the youth program is littered with former players that now have kids coming up and those parents are willing to put tremendous time and effort into it. You don't find that everywhere. Going forward, they will need to be their best to make deep runs in 3A. Much will depend on the sectional they are assigned. At least they can be sure there is no Chatard this time so they have that going for them. But they will likely find teams like Danville, Tri-West, West Lafayette, and/or Guerin Catholic in their sectional so they will still have to be really good to come out on top. I think in 2019 they could've beaten almost anyone in 3A outside of Chatard by the end of the season but that was probably the best football team in school history in my opinion. I don't know if they have state-level talent for 3A coming up or not but I know they started many underclassmen this past year so I think they should remain competitive at least. I don't know if that translates to success at the 3A level of not. Will be interesting to see. @1st_and_10 and @1st and Goal might have better perspective than me.

"bored to tears"...bro you are a clown...Noblesville and Carmel beat there ass and yes central Indy will beat your ass "for a half" and years beyond..."bored to tears"...still funny as shit....several bus rides since ended with ass kickings so "bored to tears" not working