scarab527

Fair.

Backstory? I’ve always wondered why he left.

Roy Richards would be a great hire for either school. Did a tremendous job at Morton and was also the AD there I believe. As for the other stuff, I didn’t mean to insinuate that Valpo or Merrillville won’t be competitive next year, but with the level of talent both programs are losing, they will undoubtedly take a step back. I honestly believe Valpo was overrated this year to begin with, their regular season streak would’ve ended this season had they played Merrillville. In my opinion, the de facto DAC title game will likely be between Chesterton and City next season. If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on one of those teams winning the DAC in 2021.

I agree with you to an extant, but I just don’t think he views either CP or LC as an opportunity to actually challenge for a 6A title. I also think at this point in his career he just wants to hoist another state trophy, regardless of what class it’s in. Right now, City is probably the best-positioned of any DAC school to compete for a state title in the next few years because of their slot in 5A and the talent they have coming through. Like other posters, I also doubt his desire to take on any sort of rebuild this late in his career. I really think it’d have to take the perfect job for him to leave City, and I don’t think CP or LC are that job.

While I agree with your comment, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that before coaching at MC, Mason coached nearly a decade at a school where many parents were doctors, lawyers, and other white collar professionals (even though he gave some speeches where he seemed to forget this fact, lol).

Bingo. Valpo just came off stacking 3 very good classes, but the next couple of classes have not been as good. They’ve still got some studs (the younger Jones brother, Hayden Vineyard), but the lack of underclassmen talent really hurt them this year, and they had to put everything on the shoulders of their seniors. The Vikings’ regular season unbeaten streak comes to an end next year. Merrillville was bolstered heavily by covid-driven transfers, who are now either graduating or rumored to be transferring back to their previous schools. Like Valpo, the cupboard won’t be completely bare, and there’s talent in the pipeline, but I don’t believe the Pirates will have the level of talent they had this year for awhile. City, on the other hand, returns nearly all of its impact players from a young team and also has some young studs coming through their pipeline. Their outlook the next few seasons is, in my opinion, the brightest in the DAC.

As someone who knows Mason, I’d be willing to bet money he isn’t leaving Michigan City for either of those jobs. Don’t know about the “cultural fit” problems at CP, but I’ve always been under the impression that he has no interest in coaching LC for various reasons. No clue why he’d want to do that now either, LC’s program is a mess from top to bottom. He’s established himself at City, turned the program around and has laid roots in the pop warner league. With Merrillville and Valpo about to take a step back in the DAC the next couple years, City looks to be the team to beat in the conference for the foreseeable future. Highly doubt Mason leaves, but hey I could be wrong.

I’d still think that many coaches view WC as a destination job and that many will be chomping at the bit to apply for it.

I think the whole “rigged” allegation is a little extreme to say the least.

Michigan City played Homewood-Flossmoor a couple years back. Definitely a possibility for DAC teams and good competition as well.

? Luers hadn’t played any sectional opponents in the regular season. WeBo only played one in Southmont.

What about New Prairie and Marian in the NCC instead of West Side and EC?

This was kinda my line of thinking with the split division approach. Clearly this new DAC would be deep, but there’d still be dogs like LC and Portage in it. Having some non-conference slots would allow the better teams to avoid the conference dogs to schedule some better games.

The more I’ve thought about this, the more I feel like it should get done. Penn and Elkhart would benefit from playing larger schools throughout the regular season and the DAC would gain 2 very solid programs that would highly increase the level of football played in the conference. I was skeptical about the travel distance and time change before but I don’t think those factors should prevent this from happening, there’s too much to be gained. If the Northern schools want a chance of beating Indy in the playoffs, they’re going to have to up their level of regular season competition. This move would do that. I’d probably support an East/West Division concept, with CP, LC, MVille, Portage, and either Chesterton or Valpo in the West, and the rest of the teams in the East. Play every team in your division, 3 from the other division, and leave 2 slots for non-conference play (can’t get behind any closed conferences).

While I genuinely appreciate the history lesson, I disagree for a couple reasons: 1. I don’t think the all-in format breeds entitlement whatsoever. True, the tournament has gotten rid of the idea of ‘earning your way’ into the playoffs. But the tournament has replaced the idea of earning the playoffs with earning sectional/regional/state trophies. I doubt any kid in Indiana feels any sense of ‘entitlement’ about winning one of these trophies. A by-product of this is you also don’t get the “well at least we made the playoffs” excuse you see in other states, and teams put priority on winning those playoff trophies because none of them think just getting to the playoffs is something to be proud of. This makes kids not settle and not be complacent, which I would definitely consider a good life lesson. 2. I do not think the all-in format diminishes the regular season at all either. The kids want to win every single game they play in, the fact everyone makes the playoffs does not change that. Also add in the fact that the all-in format has resulted in many teams scheduling the hardest in-season competition they can find. If we went to a qualifying format, you’d see teams schedule more cupcake games and drop some of those great regular season matchups (CG-Cathedral, for example). If anything, the all-in format ends up increasing the level of competition in the regular season, as teams strive to play the best opponents to gear themselves up for the tournament. 3. The current tournament leads to some unpredictable results. This year, you had 3-6 Leurs, 5-4 WeBo, and 4-5 Zionsville all make runs to the state finals. Would these teams have made it into a qualifying playoff format? How many big upsets or wild runs to LOS would we be missing out on by adopting a qualifying structure?

Trust me, I agree with you about participation trophies. I just don’t think those considerations apply in this situation.

Lol that’s all you needed to say.

No kid on a 1-8 team believes they have ‘earned’ a playoff spot. But if that 1-8 team wins a sectional, however unlikely that may be, they earned that trophy.

How is it an “everyone gets a trophy mentality” when every player knows they have to win 2-3 games to get a trophy?

I mean, Valpo is white-collar, and they’re one of the best programs in the region. Andrean has many white-collar families as well. White collar demographics don’t seem to hurt Carmel or Westfield either. “Softness” isn’t exclusive to either white collar or blue collar people.

I mean the DAC was down in those years, but CP still beat Merrillville all three times in the playoffs. They lost to Penn in the regional in 2016 + 2017 and Valpo in 2018, all very good teams at the time. They lost by 1 to a Merrillville team that won the regional by 2 touchdowns in 2019. Either way, winning 3 6A sectionals in a row and nearly a 4th is nothing to sneeze at. And I think you’re being too hard on Merrillville and Hobart.

Crown Point won 3 straight sectionals from 2016-2018, and nearly beat Merrillville to make it 4 in a row last year. They had a rebuilding year this year, but I would hardly say they’re a bad program. LC has many issues that we’ve discussed previously. While I agree there’s more to it than pure population, I think it’s hard to doubt that the population explosion the Indy area has experience the last 20 years has factored into that area distancing itself from the Region in terms of sports success.

While I think this proposal could help raise the level of competition within the NCC, I’m skeptical it would do much to close the gap with the Indy schools. To be honest, the only thing I see closing that gap is if the Region starts experiencing some population growth. I think that this actually could happen post-covid, as people could be looking to get out of Illinois. But until some sustained population growth starts happening in the Region, the skill gap between us and Indy in high school athletics will continue to grow.

I know they did, but they took them off the schedule this year to play a team from Illinois for better competition until covid happened. And not Cedartucky anymore? Well maybe I’ll have to come give it a look after all.

River Forest nearly closed just a few years ago. If that happened, I’d imagine some kids would go to Hobart, some to Lake Station. Can’t see any other consolidation happening in the area.