scarab527

My Senior year, Regional game vs Jimtown, it was so cold that I wore gloves (never did). Just putting your hand in the dirt made your fingers freeze up it felt like. After the first series of the game I came out and had to put my hands up to the industrial-strength heater we had (one of the ones they tell you not to touch or get too close to under any circumstances) for about 5 minutes to get the life back into them. No clue if it was 24 degrees that night but it felt like it. I think that's what I would say was my worst weather game experience. The week before, sectional championship vs Marian, the wind was insanely strong. Like a pass couldn't even be completed strong. We ended up moving that game to Saturday. If we had played that Friday I think I would've said that's the worst weather game I had ever played in.

Looked good in the picture I saw of it yesterday. Looks like they were practicing on another field this week as well to keep it from getting torn up.

Clacks has not played DB this year at all from what I've seen. No clue whether that will hold true tonight. The Andrean Secondary has done a solid job all year long up until this point, however. We'll see how they do against Nick Thompson.

While this is true you can say the exact same for Andrean in regards to Luers. Should be a great game tonight.

Well... that's definitely one way to describe it.

Well, I stand corrected. Kinda weird that Gibson and Mater Dei or Zionsville/Westfield didn't play on the same day last year then.

Really? How so?

2/4/6A one day, 1/3/5 the other. Not sure which is which this year. They haven't changed that formula since the inception of 6A. I wish they would bundle teams from one area together on one day to make it more convenient but I doubt that will ever happen.

I feel like this whole debate is very subjective. There's a few instance-specific factors (team's familiarity with travel, the smoothness of the trip, the ability to keep regular routine, etc.) that I think could impact the degree in which a long bus trip can affect a team.

Haha never noticed it before

I'll take Chatard 28-21.

Yes, that's definitely the wildest part of it. There's a 27-point swing on average across these games. I think it just goes to show how a few plays can make a large difference in the score of a game between two evenly matched teams. If those teams play again you can then have the same effect for opposite team.

I'm not sure if this has been done in previous seasons, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like John Harrell has been keeping track of all the teams that avenged a regular season loss in the playoffs. So far there have been 17 playoff rematches with a different outcome than the regular season matchup. There's the old cliché that "It's hard to beat the same team twice" and while some roll their eyes at this I've always thought there was a lot of truth to it. We saw rematches go the other way last year with BD-Brownsburg, Northridge-NorthWood, and Michigin City-Valpo, I'm sure among others. Maybe if I have time later I'll try to go through and see the percentage of how many rematches got flipped this season. Just something I thought was interesting and wanted to point out.

Agreed. Think Carroll's defense might be able to keep this one class for awhile, but I just don't see them scoring enough points to keep up with HSE.

I'll go HSE 28-7. But I'll be rooting for Carroll.

Yes they did. He was a big difference maker this last week, he really ran hard and willed Valpo’s offense to respectability. He’s 220 pounds and built like a brick house.

I can give him a pass for the preseason takes, everyone that saw Valpo in the summer said similar things. It's the prediction of a 4 TD Pirate victory this week that gets me.

The Ville wasn't anywhere close to what they were the past two years, but they were still solid. Valpo lured the Pirates into playing a slow defensive battle that played right into the Vikings' hands. As for LaPorte in 2014, Boilernation pretty much summed it up: A team with a great running back and a wily old coach in his last run got hot at the right time. The DAC was also almost exclusively a 6A conference at that point so the Slicers were used to playing up in terms of competition. Add in the fact that they were playing for a fallen teammate that year and you have the right cocktail of motivation and players for a surprise run.

Cool to see this matchup again as I played for Andrean during the last two games. Should be a good one.

I'll happily take WL or Chatard by 3 TDs over Lutheran, and that's no disrespect to the Saints (I think that could even be being kind to them). Monrovia is a great story but imo them being in SS is more of an indictment on the strength of 3A South this year than anything. I think Lutheran could win 2A but truthfully think it would be a toss up with them vs any of the 4 teams in that class left. By-far their closest games have been against 2A teams that are already knocked out. We haven't seen the Saints vs any good 3A+ teams the last few years, as opposed to 3 of the 4 remaining 2A teams. This. The caliber of line play as you increase classes is generally night-and-day. Lutheran might have the advantage in skill but Valpo has excellent size and is extremely physical. I have no problem where Lutheran is ranked here, I usually hate the arguments you sometimes see from people that the Top 25 should all be teams from higher classes. Again, this is really all just a testament to how good of a program Lutheran has built.

I think its apples to oranges there. This Valpo team is much more physical and better coached than that Chesterton team and just held an offense with at least 2 D1 skill players to 14 points. Add in the fact that Lutheran runs an offense that DAC teams see every week as opposed to the Wing-T (with two kids that run 4.4 at wingback I might add). Maybe I was being slightly hyperbolic, but BTF's 80% confidence mark seems accurate. Obviously this is all a big credit to Lutheran for building a 1A program where we can even have a debate like this. Sagarin also would have Lutheran favored vs Warren, Fishers, New Pal, Chatard, WL, etc... I mean let's be real here I think their Sagarin rating is a little over-inflated.

Agree completely with everything said here. To be fair Valpo's MO since Marshall's hire has been to create grinding, low-scoring games dominated by the running game and defense. They got Merrillville trapped in one of those last Friday. But if Snider can come back down 21 to an option offense I don't see how the Vikings can beat them with arguably the same type of formula. As for the last comment, I'll just say that after the game Friday someone said that Seiss should be Valpo's defensive MVP for the game...

I'll take Snider by 21. Huge credit to Bill Marshall and his team for getting to this point because during the summer the rumblings were that Valpo was going to be down quite a bit this year. They've taken their lumps and gotten a lot better but I don't see a way they win this game.

Jeff and WL I'll give you. Lutheran is a great program, but I'll go bet my mortgage on Valpo in that one.

I was there. I'm going to try to keep this diplomatic and not be too critical. Bottom line Merrillville looked asleep at the wheel on offense, both the players and coaches. Seemed like the coaching staff was more concerned with making sure everyone touched the ball instead of feeding the ball to their best players, and for their part, the players looked like they thought that no matter what happened they were going to win in the end, and you could tell that by their shock when they ended up losing. No one in the entire town of Valpo could cover Roche and it was obvious from the jump, he had 2 TDs and over 100 yards receiving, but none of this production came in the second half. Don't even think they tried throwing him the ball in the second half. Even more head scratching was that they didn't start feeding Marshall until about 5 minutes left in the game. Again, seemed like the coaching staff was more concerned with making sure everyone got a touch and just assumed they would win in the end no matter what. The coaching staff also looked over-confident in regards to the decisions they made; with 2 seconds left in the half in a goal-to-go from the 4, they tried lining up in wildcat (after already being stuffed the previous two plays) and got stuffed again instead of taking the field goal to go into half 17-9. Obviously hindsight is 20-20, but if they take those points they win, and Seiss even said postgame he made a mistake there. Either way I think that just showed a lack of respect for Valpo and that stop was a huge momentum swing going into the break. Overall it was the same story with Merrillville that it has been the last few years: a clear overconfidence in their own abilities and a lack of respect for the abilities of their opponents.