scarab527

I’m not sure he bases them purely off of any analytics more so than just his own thoughts and opinions, but I’d be surprised if the Sagarin Ratings didn’t influence his predictions at least somewhat.

Go to John Harrell’s website, and on the home page, there’s a link for “Game Capsules” for Friday and Saturday. Click on the “Fri” or “Sat” link to see his projections for the game on each day.

I have heard linebacker.

Congrats to the Brickies on making their long-awaited return to the state finals. Unfortunately, I agree with everything said here. Roncalli has throttled two teams I think are better than Hobart in the past two weeks. It’s hard not to think that this game will go similarly. Hobart’s defense is excellent but their offense won’t be able to keep them in the game. I think it’ll be a little closer thanks to that stout Brickie defense, but I’ll go 28-7 Roncalli.

I would say the latter which to state the obvious is connected to state population. Indy and it’s suburbs are by far the largest population center in the state and are growing while many of the other population centers are dwindling. Just seems natural that the area with by far the largest amount of people would have the highest amount of good athletes and football players. I don’t think it’s necessarily “more commitment” to football (though this could be a factor) as it is just a much larger pool of kids to choose from.

I doubt it. I like Roncalli by 3+TDs.

Spot on comments. Game was maddening to watch. I think Westfield would’ve pulled away anyhow, but the Pirates did themselves no favors.

I would say so.

100%

Missed call on a Marcus Hardy TD and a failed 4th down conversion gives the Rocks the ball. 7-7 End of 1Q

I always thought St. Germain did a pretty good job at LC. The one thing that killed him was losing a lot of talent to Andrean those years. He just couldn’t keep kids in house for some reason. As for the comments about Andrean’s current situation, I can’t say I don’t agree. I also think that Andrean is poised to slip even more in the next few years.

I guess I’ll give my thoughts on some of these games now. Merrillville-Westfield: I think the keys to this game will be the play of the Merrillville offensive line and Pirate QB Angel Nelson. When Nelson has struggled, so have the Pirates. In the Chatard game, he lost two fumbles and threw a pick. Last week against Elkhart, he let the Lions back into the game by throwing 3 picks. He’ll need to hold onto the ball and make good reads for the Pirates to have a chance. The Pirate O-Line was physically humiliated in their loss to Chatard, but this group has improved since then, and came up huge last week in opening holes for Logan to rush for 187 yards and 3 huge TDs against a pretty good Elkhart defense. They’ll need to show up big this week against an even better Westfield defense. In the end, I think this one could turn into a bit of a shootout, but I think Westfield will get some key stops. I’ll go Westfield 42 - Merrillville 28. Valpo-Zionsville This game is hard to predict. These two teams seem to play to the other teams’ weakness. From what I’ve seen from Zionsville, they’re pretty balanced run/pass, with a good RB, and three good receivers in #1, #11, and #19. The QB is hard to contain in the pocket as he’s very quick. I don’t think Valpo has played a team with this kind of balance all year, and definitely not a team who can sling the ball around like Zionsville. It’s hard to tell how the Viking secondary will match up. I expect the Vikings to dominate in the trenches, but will this matter if Zionsville can hit a few big plays to their receivers? The fact that this game is being played in Zionsville is definitely an advantage for the home team, hopefully Valpo won’t come out flat from the long bus ride. I’d like to see Valpo make a 2nd straight trip to LOS, but my gut tells me that Zionsville pulls this one out, 28-21. Hobart-Marion Can Hobart make its first state finals appearance in nearly 25 years? The defense has been spectacular, the offense has been suspect. If the defense can’t contain Marion’s two explosive running backs, I think the Bricks will have a hard time playing catch up. Hobart has hard a hard time hitting explosive plays this season. They’ll need to hit some on Friday. I think the Brickies finally exorcize their demons this Friday, and book their trip to LOS, 21-14.

Two very good points here. Andrean’s reach will probably grow when the new school is built. Also, when I played PW, all those years ago, Tri-Town was the dominate team. A lot of kids I played with at Andrean played on the Raiders too. The Tri-Town dominance has seemingly faded. I’m sorry, I’ll edit my comment to “in the past 20+ years”, is that better for you?

It’s gonna take a lot more than a new coach to get that program trending up...

Oh man, this might be one of the toughest jobs in the state. LC needs a complete and total culture shift starting from their feeder schools and moving up. They have all the problems you listed, and I would also add that LC has always had problems losing some of their best football players to Andrean as well. It’s going to take a very dedicated coach who will be in it for the long haul to turn this program around. But in all honesty, I’m not sure it can be done. As for Mason possibly taking the job, I’d say there’s slim to no chance of that happening. I think he really likes his situation in Michigan City for various reasons. Plus he moved from Schererville when he left Andrean and took the Michigan City job, so I don’t think he’ll want to move back so quickly.

Which conferences are you relating to them?

Why do you say that? I’d say it’s at least as good as it was then.

I agree with everything you said here. The best teams in the HCC have shown they can beat teams in the MIC, even the Big 4, in the regular season. But as you said, they haven’t shown they can beat the best team in the MIC in the playoffs yet. Avon almost did it in 2015, but they came up short. The HCC has all the factors for future success, but as you said, so do Carmel and CG. I don’t see Warren Central and Ben Davis going away for a long time either. I probably wouldn’t take the bet that the MIC will win every 6A title this decade either. But if you asked me to bet in 2013 that in 2020, every 6A title so far would’ve been won by one of the Big 4, I probably wouldn’t have taken that bet either.

Fair. Still, those 2 titles were at the very beginning of the decade. In the years that have followed, in my opinion, the gap between the MIC and everyone else has grown. This isn’t a knock on those other teams, the HCC has proven to be a great conference too. But the MIC has proven itself to be on a whole ‘nother level.

? 6A has been won every year by the MIC since it was first introduced.

Trust me, I’d love to see it happen. Maybe it will. But I doubt it.

The dominance of the MIC isn’t going away anytime soon. I doubt that changing scheduling is going to help. To be honest, I’d be shocked if a team that’s not in the MIC wins 6A once in this entire decade.

I disagree with your analysis of the DAC. I think the DAC has to be considered trending up. Valpo has won 3 straight regionals, Merrillville 2 straight. Valpo overcame a lot of covid and injury adversity to get there. Merrillville took down a good Elkhart team despite throwing 3 INTs, the Pirates were cruising up 14-0 until the turnover party began. Chesterton beat Penn, admittedly in a down year, but you tell me the last time when the 3rd best team in the DAC beat Penn in the playoffs. The Trojans then took Elkhart down to the wire and nearly won that game. Coach Mason told me before the season that he thought Michigan City was “a year away”, but they still took Valpo down to the wire in the sectional and had a good win over Warsaw in the regular season. I think Coach Mason feels great about his team’s prospects for next year. LaPorte played Valpo tougher than anyone expected in the sectional and had a great win over Michigan City in the regular season. I think that program is trending up. Crown Point was hit the hardest by covid this year, but this program is only a couple years away from winning 3 straight 6A sectionals. They’ll recover. Portage hasn’t been good in over a decade and definitely wasn’t going to be good this season after the Radtke fiasco combined with covid. LC is admittedly trending in the wrong direction.

Agreed, I was surprised by this prediction, especially after how tough Concordia played Chatard last week.

1. Thank you for proving my point. 2. YOU brought up human capital, I just stated that fact that companies are already working as if certain prospective employees have higher human capital than others, and that educational history is a large part of these calculations. This is a fact. Again, why do people go to better colleges? And why do parents send their kids to better high schools? It is to increase their human capital in the eyes of employers. 3. I’ll ignore all the rather sad “woe is me” stuff in your comment. If PPs can’t succeed in sports with all the advantages they have, including the huge one you just mentioned, that’s their fault and they have no one to blame but themselves.