George Orwell 2

Football is a team sport (or one could even say it is a community sport). Chatard could easily have had 2 or 3 fewer players recognized this year than it did. The difference with Chatard is that there is a good (not necessarily great) player at every single position and 2 or 3 deep on the depth chart at every single position. These recognitions are nice to have, but, give me the 10th best player in the class at every position and my team would win every game by 50.

It was my impression when speaking with my friends about it that they paid tuition like anyone else, but, I don't know for a fact.

Maybe someone from Roncalli can answer this question, but do the students in the STARS program count towards enrollment totals? I believe that it is the only program in the archdiocese which provides Catholic education to students with learning disabilities, so, families from all over Indianapolis send their kids to Roncalli for it. By all accounts, it is an excellent program. Although, it has been quite some time now, I have had a few friends from the north deanery sends their kids there and everyone raves about it.

My only point is that football lends itself to dominance by a few teams regardless of the level at which it is played. There is something about the variables that lead to success in football which are difficult to replicate among more than a few teams. I'm not sure why that is, just that it is a fact that exists for whatever reason.

Mount Union, Wisconsin-Whitewater, Valdosta State, Northwest Missouri State, and North Dakota State all strenuously object to your position that there should be competitive balance in football.

I don't recall you mentioning the groups that are trying to eliminate youth and high school football in that discussion. Although, admittedly, it has been a long time.

You tilted at some windmills that day if I remember correctly. 🙂

Nobody believes in us! We'll show the world not to take us lightly.

Hopefully, this is a competitive game. Danville is on a roll, has a ton of talent, and should be really confident. Chatard is on life support, talent is way down this year, and have struggled, especially on offense, the past few weeks. This is probably the first time in a long time that Chatard is a big underdog going into Thanksgiving weekend. But, they will play hard and with some luck can make a game of it. Whichever team wins will be deserving. Good luck to both. Hoping for a safe competitive game with no injuries.

Lysander and some others may remember a dissertation I posted a few years ago on the impossibility of identifying endogenous and exogenous characteristics with respect to high school football. For everyone's benefit, I will not repeat it here.

Thank you, Lysander. I appreciate the sentiment and if it weren't for one unfortunate fact, I would do just that. But . . . well, you know . . . I'm dead. Sooooo . . . . . . yeah.

I don't disagree with your conclusion (that SF dampened the top end of PP . . .), but, your sample (2010-2012) is way too small. In the 20 years prior to 2010 in Classes 1A - 4A, PP's won 46% of the state championships and 38% of the semi-state championships. That is much different than the outcomes in 2010 - 2012 and much more closely resembles the long term reality of Indiana high school football. Granted those are still high percentages for such a small group of schools, but, nowhere close to 100% and 80% from 2010 - 2012. I am of the opinion that that was a unique time period in the history of PP football with only a few individual players (Jaylon Smith, the Martin brothers, and the Anthrop brothers, for instance) contributing significantly to those percentages. In fact, one could pick a different 3 year period and end up with a much different perspective. For example, 2004 - 2006 produced public school state champions 66% of the time and semi-state champions 66% of the time (Classes 1A - 4A). In other words, from 2004 - 2006, PPs only won 33% of the state championships and 33% of the semi-state championships in Classes 1A - 4A. Had you chosen that 3 year period instead you may have come to the conclusion that the SF actually helped PPs win more than they had previously not less. Alas, that is not true, but, when undertaking a data driven analysis, which data sample one selects for comparison purposes is important. Generally speaking, the larger the sample size the better. With respect to sectional championships, I suspect that of the different PPs who won those regional, semi-state, and state championships, many were in the same sectional. I would guess that the vast majority of sectionals in Classes 1A - 4A do not have any PPs in them and the ones that do probably have multiple PPs in them. Notwithstanding the (very mild) constructive feedback, I appreciate someone bringing a data focused analysis to the discussion. Your opinion was very well written and, as I mentioned above, I think you arrived at the correct conclusion.

I think we can all agree that there are multiple variables which lead certain high schools to football success and enrollment is only one of those. So, let's represent Football Success in the form of an equation with the sum of multiple variables equaling Football Success. x + y + z = Football Success Now, I think we can all also agree that each variable is not equal. Some variables are more determinate than other variables. Therefore, each variable must have its own coefficient which represents the extent to which that variable affects Football Success. Ax + By + Cz = Football Success But, I think we can all further agree that there aren't three variables involved here; there are dozens of variables to take into consideration (e.g. head coach, youth league, depth of interest, tradition, community support, quality of players, etc., etc., etc.). Therefore, a more accurate representation of the Football Success equation would be as follows: Ax + By + Cz + Dn + Eo + Fp + Gq + Hr + Is + Jt + Ku + Lv + Mw = Football Success The solution proposed in this thread changes the Football Success equation to: Ax + By + Cz + Dn + Eo + Fp + (2G)q + Hr + Is + Jt + Ku + Lv + Mw = Football Success I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that this solution will not bring about the distributive justice desired by its proponents. Just a guess.

4 really good teams left in the 3A bracket. No way that there is a 20 pt difference between Chatard and the other three schools. I expect two good games this weekend and another on Thanksgiving weekend. Hopefully, the Trojans will still be playing . . . actually, I hope someone, anyone will still be playing.

Agree. Really impressed with Concordia last night. They had a lot of talent on the field. Not enough players, but, the ones that were out there were really good. Fortunately, we were able to make up the difference with depth. Congrats on a good year. It is too bad that these two teams won't meet again next year.