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No, Saban is a good college coach. He sucked in the NFL. So coaching from high school to college and NFL are different. You should know that. If not ask Gary Moller or Lou Holtz

Well, coming up with something on the fly here but 2000-2024 is a solid 25 year period where maybe it’d be cool to run some numbers. Maybe a top 20-25 by class over that time period? A top 25 all-time list? A list of each team’s best team ranked where each school can only appear on the list once? An average by school of every team they’ve put on the field the last 25 years? The possibilities are endless.

You just put steak in front of a dog. Thanks my man!

Is there a place where I can find all-time Sagarin ratings or a listing of the best teams ever?

This is really ironic. I am tackling this for some updates for the Predictor Tool, so we can predict/simulate matchups from previous years. Using Sagarin's ratings (going back to 1999), the first step is to normalize the data. For instance, Chatard may have a rating of 103.52 in 2023, but Chatard in 2003 could be 98.52. How do we compare the numbers. To normalize the data -- without getting too technical -- we have to compare Chatard 2023 to the other teams in 2023. How much better/worse is Chatard 2023 compared to the other teams in 2023? Then with that, we do some black magic with longitudinal analysis -- that is how do all teams in 2023 compare to 2003 overall? There are a lot of factors to look at -- for example, if in 2003 the 3A teams had a much better normalized rating than in 2023, we need to give extra weight to Chatard of 2003. There are many things which can be looked at. Overall, single-elimination tournaments, especially unseeded, are terrible ways to settle things. I'd say most years the champion is only the "best" team around 75% of the time -- maybe less. 6A and 1A really skew things because you don't have as many great teams. The four-team MLB playoffs were probably the best method to fairly determine a champion. A team had to play well through 162 regular-season games (or however there were previously), then win two series. The NBA is also a pretty good determiner -- all things considered. A team isn't penalized for one bad night, or an injury that crops up at the wrong time. I look forward to updating the Predictor Tool very soon. I'd like to introduce some upgrades as well like historic helmets for every team. If anyone has Sagarin ratings prior to 1999, or access to The Star or Bloomington Herald-Times archives, I'd be interested to see older ratings as well (let me know).

Sounds similar to Snider/Luers.

Better athletes? Are kids bigger and faster in Indy than kids throughout the rest of the state? None of this adds up. The only difference between Ben Davis and Merrillville is enrollment. That's it. Carmel and Valpo........enrollment. Warren Central and Snider......enrollment. There are no other differences in those programs. If those northern programs had the same amount of kids that the three Indy schools do, would they have the same amount of state championships? That's an easy "yes." You Indy fans are getting your feelings hurt because someone is willing to point out the obvious. No one is saying your programs aren't good down there. We're just stating that their is an obvious advantage over your competition. Jeffersonville, Harrison, and Portage will never be afforded the opportunity to stare at a trophy case with nine titles in it. The cards are stacked heavily against them. But that's OK, northern teams enjoy the challenge of breaking through and getting that "one". Looking forward to the day when schools ranked 6 through 10 in enrollment win nine straight titles. But we can all agree that it will never happen.

So far as p5-type programs go, I'm pretty sure it was Paul Moala. High school safety converted to LB, 2018 grad, played at ND, Idaho, GT. Looks like he's an undrafted free agent with the Bears going into his first camp. Before that, I think it was Braxton Cave. He was an '09 grad, played center at ND. I said earlier in the thread that Penn and Carmel have the number of state championships that they do, largely, because they were able to avoid BD and WC or one or both of those programs was down for a bit. That might be an exaggeration, but Penn and Carmel are a combined 1-9 against those teams when meeting in the final. Carmel has played them closer but is still 0-5––I know they've gotten through BD and WC before when they've been all been in the south. When BD or WC are state championship good, look out.

Warren Central could go 0-9 and still make regionals. They play in the worst sectional in the entire state. Making a regional with that draw shouldn’t be an accomplishment.

Perhaps its the "teacher" that is failing and not the "students". I provided you clear data going back to 1990-91 with all the state champions in the largest class, and it was not 90% for the big 3. Far lower...the big 3 (BD/WC/Carmel) from 1990-2012 won 53% of the state titles. That assumes there were the "big 3" in terms of enrollment, which we know they were not always in the top 3. Prior to the establishment of 6A, schools like Bloomington South won a couple of titles and had a 3rd appearance. LC, Fishers, Castle, Snider also were winners in the largest class. All "outliers" I guess. Since 6A, BD/WC/Carmel has won 63% of the titles. Fully transparent, I have a hard time getting enrollment data past 2017. I did find a report for 2001-2, but most of it is archives and it has to be requested. Do you have another source to obtain? BTW, WC was not in the top 3 that year. NC was 3rd largest. I know its much "simpler" to say the largest schools win all the titles. (or 90%) But its not that simple, and insinuating others are not as smart as you because they poke holes in your statements is simply lacking. I would agree...you could see them looking so much better on the field. Perhaps it was covid. Definitely something changed.

O’Shea had it rolling at NC for a couple of years and the COVID seemed to kill all their momentum.

I listed those coaches is a previous post. Add Mark Haste to the mix. Coach Haste was 101-44 at Tri West from 1994-2005. His teams won 3 state championships with 1 runner up during his tenure. Mark goes to North Central 2006-08. His teams were 14-19 for those 3 seasons. Speaking of Streiff...I watched him one game at CG do something I've never seen before or since. NC was not playing well and Streiff was ticked. He called a time out, had all the players on the sidelines go out on the field and join the others currently in the game. He up/downed them all during the time out. Officials came over and he called 2 more timeouts and kept up/downing them. I assumed he felt they weren't giving it their all, so he collected some energy. Was wild.

I wanna go back to the good vs great coach argument using North Central as an example. Luck your chops on this one @Bash Riprock… Rick Streiff: 21-23 at North Central Rick Streiff: 98-41 at Cathedral Kevin O’Shea: 25-37 at North Central Kevin O’Shea: 104-8 at LCC

Common ground...so a state runner up is an accomplishment, right? Those are certainly not limited to the "big 3" schools.

Carmel appears to be going through a stretch where either: coaching is going stale, buy in is at an all time low, complacency has worked into the program or top players are not playing football. I don't pay enough attention to how many D1 level players they are producing, to have a valid opinion on the state of affairs down there, but I think their current problem lies beyond numbers. When Carmel figures this out, they will be winning sectionals again, and likely retake their spot on top of 6A North. Eliminate CG from the overall conversation, what Moore has done there is develop an empire. It will eventually come to an end, but for this situation, set them aside. Who made regionals in the south & north last year? Ben Davis (#2 enrollment), Warren (#3 enrollment), Center Grove & Cathedral and in the north Penn (#6 enrollment), CP, Westfield & HSE (#8 enrollment) 50% of the schools competing at this point are still of the larger enrollment schools in the state 3400 +. They may not win state each year anymore, yes because other schools have grown up and decreased the enrollment gap which has injected depth and talent into these programs....but the biggest schools are still moving on. When BD, Carmel, Warren, Penn etc. are all not winning sectionals on a regular basis then I think we talk say 6A has reached parity. Then we just need to get a team from the true north to close the gap and win the entire thing again. There is only 1 school in the top ten in enrollment from the true north...Penn. Does Carroll or CP need to crack the top 10 to have a chance at a win at state, or is the true north stuck playing second and third fiddles? (I only included those schools because they will consistently be in 6A for the foreseeable future.)

There’s a massive difference between a school with 3500-4000 kids (4-5 schools) and 1500-2000 kids (the rest of 5A) before the 6th class was added. That’s why the Big 3 dominated for so long. There’s now 18 6A schools (out of 32) whose enrollment are all ~3000+. Once you cross a certain threshold in terms of enrollment, the number becomes insignificant. Only X amount of kids can play. If you can’t field a competitive football team with 3000+ kids in your building, you need to look in the mirror. Simply put, Carmel/Warren/Ben Davis no longer enjoy the massive disparity in enrollment like they use too. And the results the last 6-8 years speak for themselves.