scarab527

Tyler Bush to Trey Simmons for a 30ish yard TD. PAT good. City 7 Valpo 0, 2:29 1Q

They’re on a roll at the moment. That beatdown of Hobart was certainly a statement. The Inferno has been awfully good to the Red Devils this past month.

RDP gets their revenge 21-14

Zionsville by 14

Hatch’s return has added a whole ‘nother dimension to this City offense. I don’t think the impact of his absence in the first game between these teams can be overstated. Kid is a threat to take the ball to the house every time he touches it. As you said, Valpo took advantage of the Wolves’ man coverage scheme in the first game, especially getting Hayden Vineyard involved in the passing game, where it looked like no one was covering him on two huge receptions for touchdowns. And City’s rush defense was definitely wobbly by the end of the game as well, with Valpo’s depth seeming to be a big advantage in that regard. How City adjusts to these from the previous game will be interesting to see. These two teams are basically oil and water; one wins by grinding opponents down and generally wants to play the game in the box, while the other wants to race past their opponents with elite perimeter athleticism. How these styles play out in this rematch will be fun to watch.

The Trojans seemed to be looking ahead, even during the season. Thought they’d get it done this year too. Anyway, I’ll take the Pirates by 3-4 TDs.

Yes, Mason does call the plays. Did so at Andrean too, at least when I was there. Add in WRs Trey Simmons and Omarion Hatch to that mix. The collection of skill players City has is very impressive. Mason has said it’s probably his best ever.

Big Duneland rematch for a regional championship. Valpo took the first game 49-28, but as we’ve seen throughout the tournament, the first matchup means next to nothing in the playoffs, and it’s worth noting City was without some key pieces in that game. City has been on a roll lately, winning 6 straight after a tough 3 game skid early in Duneland Conference play. During this win streak, the Wolves have put up at least 39 points in every game. Their performance starting the last drive of the first half last week vs Mishawaka was very impressive. After being down 18-6, they surged to score 30 unanswered points, with the Cavemen having no answer for the Wolves’ skill players. Valpo has been the thorn in City’s side for a long time, and according to Harrell’s website, the Vikings own a 25-3 all time record against the Wolves. City has not defeated Valpo under Coach Mason. Valpo seemed to wear down City up front in the teams’ first matchup this year, so it’ll be interesting to see how the battle in the trenches plays out on Friday. Harrell is taking City to win 31-30. If City plays disciplined, and limits mistakes, I think they’ve got a good chance of winning this game. I’ll take City to finally get the green monkeys off their backs, 35-28.

Lowell beat the brakes off of Hobart tonight 38-10. The Red Devils look like they’re peaking at the perfect time. They get another chance at revenge vs New Prairie this week.

Penn 10 - Chesterton 7 Thought this would be year the Trojans finally got over the hump, but they stumbled down the stretch. I saw in the paper their coach was talking about beating Merrillville in the regional after they beat LC, then they lost to CP and got the brakes beat off of them by Merrillville, and just lost in what has to be considered a big let down. Big congratulations to Penn for gutting out a sectional in a year filled with a lot of adversity. Huge win for them.

Michigan City 30 - Mishawaka 18 5:57 left 3Q. Mishawaka took an 18-6 lead midway thru the 2nd but it’s been all City since then

Don’t know how much stock I’d put into those common opponents. I mean Portage beat LaPorte by 21 a couple weeks ago, but I’m almost 100% sure Penn would beat Portage by a couple scores. Penn started rough but seemed to play better down the stretch. Chesterton, on the other hand, has been struggling lately and their best player/ engine of their offense is hobbled coming into this matchup. The Sagarin ratings have these teams pretty evenly matched, and Harrell is taking Chesterton 21-17. I don’t think these teams are nearly as far apart as you think they are, but we shall see.

Eh, motivation is always a factor, especially when the two teams aren’t super far apart in terms of talent. The old “who wants it more?” cliche is a cliche for a reason. I think Chesterton is the better team too, but I think this game will be a lot closer than I would’ve guessed had I been asked a month ago. I didn’t mean to insinuate Penn won’t be highly motivated coming in as well, I’m sure they will be. My comment was more about how I believe Chesterton will be very motivated and hence focused and therefore not have a let down game.

Chesterton’s defense is legit. I’d be absolutely shocked if Penn put up 24 points on them. The big question in this game is the health of Chesterton QB Chris Mullen. He got hurt vs Merrillville and they seemed to go with a very run heavy game plan against Portage last week (not sure if this was just because of the weather or not). If he’s not 100% the Chesterton offense might struggle to score points themselves. Still, I think Chesterton is better and will be highly motivated to get their first sectional championship. I’ll go Chesterton 14-0.

Wherever he decides to play, I hope he chooses it because that’s where he wants to go and where he thinks he’ll be improved the most as a football player and man. I’ve known guys who went to places because of family/etc and it didn’t work out for them. Wishing this kid the best

Hope Harrison can pull this out

I thought everyone would be bored talking about field conditions ad nauseam, but clearly I was wrong

That would be quite the shocker

Kid’s got a surprising amount of power and tackle breaking ability as well for his frame. I know he played RB at Calumet, but Merrillville’s been moving him around out wide, in the slot, and in the backfield. He’s definitely been a huge addition to their offense.

CG Passing YPG: 140.1 CG Rushing YPG: 232.7 Yes, clearly run-first. But I would say that is pretty balanced, especially considering almost all of their games have been blowouts where they were certainly running the ball to kill the clock.

Definitely the pass rush is the first reason I like the 4-3 a little better. The 3-4 OLB is practicing drops and offer responsibilities whereas the 4-3 DE is practicing his rush a lot more. The 3-4 definitely gives you more options with blitz combos and has the advantage of 2-gapping, slanting, etc and odd fronts generally being harder for kids to block, both mentally and physically. The 4-3 is arguably more “vanilla” but there’s lots of ways to spice it up a bit. Personally if you’ve got the horses I say 4-3 but again it comes down to personnel. If you’ve got kids who can operate in space as those 3-4 OLBs you should be using that.

I mean passing 14 times a game when you’ve won each game by an average of 3TDs+ and are generally only playing half the game is kind of a lot for hs. But more importantly they have the ability to be balanced. That’s what I’m talking about. If their backs were ever to the wall and they needed to pass, they could count on Jackson and those receivers. And the ability to pass also let’s them take advantage of any matchups they like in the secondary. This is what I mean when I say they have balance. Those are two attributes championship teams have. They’re just so good they haven’t really needed to show those attributes much this year lol.

How many of those runs have been after the game is out of reach and they’re just trying to eat the clock? 4-3 myself, just hard to get 4 studs on that d-line. Prolly why most hs teams run the 3-4

15 years ago… and CG has a D1 QB and good receivers, their most explosive plays in the state game last year were all passes. Again, not saying you gotta pass every down… balance is key

How many teams have won 6A/5A only running the football? Yeah you can win doing that at the lower levels but when it comes to big boy football you need to be able to have balance.