NLCTigerFan07

A few head scratchers per usual that I do not think many on this forum called out as possibilities

6A

Throwing Penn into Sectional 1 as opposed to having Harrison (West Lafayette) just take Lafayette Jeff's place (who moved to 5A), and then leaving Homestead on an island in Fort Wayne with 3 Hamilton County schools is interesting.

5A

There was always going to be an oddball in Sectional 12 with Kokomo, Lafayette Jeff, and McCutcheon, but I can't say anyone predicted it would be South Bend Adams. I figured it would be Fort Wayne North Side or even Warsaw.

The inclusion of Anderson and East Central as outliers in 5A South was always going to be funky too, but cannot say I saw the IHSAA splitting Whiteland and Franklin. I don't hate it, just a little bit surprised

4A

Putting Culver Academies in Sectional 20 had a ripple effect that (unfortunate in my eyes) causes all NLC 4A squads to be placed into Sectional 18.

On 4/8/2024 at 10:44 AM, 00NWP said:

Also, how does everyone like having 3 misdirection offenses this upcoming year (i would assume Wawasee is going to switch their offense with the new coach)?

Definitely will be interesting to see how it impacts NorthWood, Goshen, Plymouth, and Northridge. I miss when it was just Warsaw running the offense when Coach Curtis came over in 2018, then Mishawaka joined the conference in 2020, now Wawasee likely running a variation of the offense means NLC defenses will have plenty of practice time spent preparing against it.

Side note - the conference schedule reshuffles this year (and next year) as part of the conference rotation plan through the 2033 season. Definitely some interesting tidbits with that change up.

Warsaw - ends the next two seasons with quite the gauntlet of Mishawaka, NorthWood, Northridge in weeks 7-9.

For this season, both Warsaw and Concord get a little "screwed", playing their final home game in week 7 while having to go on the road both weeks 8 and 9. With that, Wawasee and NorthWood play 3 of their final 4 games at home, with back-to-back home games weeks 8 and 9.

Goshen also gets a little jipped by the schedule change, playing 3 of their final 4 games on the road (weeks 6, 7, and 9).

For the first time since the IHSAA went to a 9 game regular season schedule in 1997, US 30 rivals Warsaw and Plymouth will not be playing in Week 3 to open up their conference schedules. Definitely strange! Also, with Labor Day being "early" this year - no NLC team will have to deal with Blueberry Festival parking in Plymouth. Typically a pain in the butt for Warsaw fans every other year, the Rockies will host Columbia City the weekend of Labor Day. Good luck to those Eagles fans finding out about that parking situation!

Another first since the IHSAA went to a 9 game regular season schedule in 1997, Kosciusko County rivals Warsaw and Wawasee will face off prior to week 7 for the "W" Trophy game. The Tigers and Warriors will battle in week 4 each of the next two seasons, which will be the earliest they match up until meeting in week 3 in the 2030 and 2031 seasons.

Concord has a heck of a schedule the next two years with Elkhart County rivals Elkhart and Jimtown weeks 1 and 2, then start the NLC schedule with Mishawaka, Northridge, Warsaw, and NorthWood. They will play those 4 NLC foes in a consectutive manner over the next 4 seasons, and in 8 of the next 10 seasons.

Free Agent: Harrison Mevis, K > Warsaw Community > Missouri > Carolina Panthers

To answer the title of this topic, and I say this seriously and sincerely - what is there to be excited about when it comes to the NIC these days? I promise I am not asking that facetiously.

Penn - conference/division champs/co-champs in 12 of last 15 season. Only lost 7 conference games in 15 years, and even in down years for them should be the class of the conference. There are no teams (okay - MAYBE an argument for New Prairie and Elkhart) in the NIC that are doing anything to make the Kingsmen better or prepared for 6A football. Zero excitement from my perspective.

Elkhart - after an historic 2020 season in their first season back as a consolidated high school, they have dominated the "South Bend" schools, but have gone 2-7 against Penn, Mishawaka Marian, and New Prairie. The gap between them and Penn dose not appear to have closed whatsoever. Will only qualify for excitement if they can get to the level of New Prairie/Penn sustained success.

Adams - the largest of the "South Bend" schools has been sputtering. 1 sectional win in the last 8 seasons, and lost all momentum built during the Coach Redman tenure. With Riley's resurgance under Coach Lee, I am unconvinced the Eagles will see progress anytime soon. Zero excitement.

New Prairie - probably the best program in the NIC, and their only flaw being that they are a 4A school having to punch above their weightclass when taking on the behemouth known as Penn. Even then, they have gone a respectable 2-4 against the Kingsmen. So far, the only team I would deem worthy of any "excitement" for this upcoming season, only because they are always a threat to win the conference and have a deep tournament run.

Riley - a feel good story last year, but can they sustain it and become the "it" program for South Bend schools? Their schedule will be significantly tougher adding Penn, Elkhart and Marian. To me, that makes things less exciting, unless they can prove "staying power" as a mid-tier NIC school that can sometimes hang with the larger/better schools. Slight level of excitement to see how they stack up and continue improving as a program.

Washington - will be a perrenial doormat in the current NIC set up and struggle to have winning seasons. That is what will be considered an accomplishment for the Panthers moving forward. Finding a way to 5 wins in the regular season each year is the goal, and that does not sound very exciting.

St. Joseph and Marian - I am lumping these 2 programs together. They are shells of their former selves. Unlike Riley, at least they have already been playing the larger/stronger teams in the NIC. If these programs can get back on track, they can potentially have a few seasons competeing for the "best record excluding Penn" in the NIC. Until then... not much excitement for either.

4 minutes ago, BTF said:

We're talking about how good the 6A team is that got beat by 5A Warsaw. It qualifies 🙂

Oh well in that case - yes we can carry on and talk about how good the Tigers are 😄

Why are we talking about 6A schools in a 5A thread? 😛 

I'm not sure if I am confident in saying Warsaw will represent 5A North this year, but they should be solid candidate. They are the favorite for their prospective sectional with Concord, Goshen and SB Adams, and then would likely face Lafayette Jeff, Kokomo, McCutcheon, or FW North in a Regional matchup. I like the Tigers in a matchup with any of those teams. None are pushovers, but none are at the caliber of FW Carroll, Homestead, or Penn (who the Tigers are used to facing in the postseason).

Facing a Region team (Merrillville, Valparaiso, Hammond Morton) would be a much higher degree of competition/difficulty, but I'd give Warsaw a puncher's chance in a game against any of those teams.

On 4/13/2024 at 11:01 AM, Footballmomma said:

Won’t disagree I just hate there style of offense it’s just so boring. And the defense isn’t always great for warsaw! Didn’t they graduate most there team?

It's comical to call Warsaw's (or any other teams that run a style of Flexbone/Wishbone/Triple Option) boring. Big plays happen all the time, and the Tigers have averaged 30 points per game since Bart Ball made it's way to the Lake City.

As well - the Tiger Defense has been especially stout the last 2 seasons. Last year, they gave up 15 points per game, including 6 games holding opponents to fewer than 14 points. Warsaw also has 2 defensive players representing the North in this year's North/South All-Start Game.

Last 2 years when comparing Warsaw's Scoring O/D compared to Valparaiso's Scoring O/D... are basically the same.

It will be interesting to see how the 4A sectionals end up getting assigned. One reason the NLC went to the rotating conference schedule, with a "set" Week 9 opponent, was to prevent the chances of teams playing in Week 9, and then again the next week in the first round of sectionals. With Mishawaka dropping to 4A this next cylce, and their Week 9 opponent being Wawasee (also class 4A), that could cause an issue there.

However, when looking at the teams that are in 4A, I think there is a good chance Mishawaka and Wawasee will end up in different sectionals.

My best guess as to how things will shake out in 4A North:

Sectional 17: East Chicago Central, Gary West, Hanover Central, Highland, Hobart, Kankakee Valley, Lowell, New Prairie
Sectional 18: Culver Academies, Mishawaka, Northridge, NorthWood, Plymouth, SB Riley, SB St Joseph, SB Washington
Sectional 19: Columbia City, DeKalb, East Noble, FW Dwenger, FW South, Leo, New Haven, Wawasee
Sectional 20: FW Wayne, Frankfort, Huntington North, Lebanon, Logansport, Marion, Muncie Central, Yorktown

Where it could get weird is if for some reason the IHSAA decides to put Wawasee in Sectional 18 over Culver Academies (who could go to Sectional 20 and FW Wayne go to Sectional 19). I think that's truly where the decision lies. Where do they put Culver Academies and Wawasee? The rest of Sectional 17 and 18 are set.

21 hours ago, Indiana Fan said:

Unsure as to why the 6A would change how they have been in the past…??? It’s the same schools with additions ones that slot right in in the north. Don’t see IHSAA switching sectionals up that much.

Agreed completely - slot Harrison into Lafayette Jeff (moved to 5A) spot in Sectional 1 and Snider into Warsaw (moved to 5A) spot in Sectional 2 and then everything else stays the same.

I see 5A shaking out like this

Sectional 9 - no change - Hammond Central, Hammond Morton, Merrillville, Munster
Sectional 10 - no change - Chesterton, LaPorte, Michigan City, Valparaiso
Sectional 11 - put Warsaw in place of Mishawaka (who moved to 4A) - Concord, Goshen, SB Adams, Warsaw
Sectional 12 - many changes - FW North, Kokomo, Lafayette Jeff, McCutcheon

5A South can go a number of different ways. There are 2 outliers that need to be dealt with (Anderson and East Central) and then 6 other pairs that will definitely be together, and they can be combined into a variety of 4-team sectionals. I agree with the way @Indiana Fan has it broken out and imagine Franklin and Whiteland will get combined with Anderson and East Central to make a sectional. Then with the other 12 teams, you could literally do it a number of ways:

Option 1: Decatur Central, Plainfield, TH North, TH South / Bloomington North, Bloomington South, Columbus East, Seymour / Castle, Evansville North, Floyd Central, New Albany (as seen on @Indiana Fan map)
Option 2: Bloomginton North, Bloomington South, Decatur Central, Plainfield / Castle, Evansville North, TH North, TH South / Columbus East, Floyd Central, New Albany, Seymour
Option 3: Decatur Central, Plainfield, TH North, TH South / Bloomington North, Bloomington South, Castle, Evansville North / Columbus East, Floyd Central, New Albany, Seymour

On 2/28/2024 at 7:30 AM, BDGiant93 said:

I like that Carroll is taking on Indy Metro teams. 

1 hour ago, BDGiant93 said:

Snider too!

Warsaw as well! The Tigers travel down to face the Warren Central Warriors in Week 2 on August 30th. That's a huge pickup for them. I am pretty sure after this home and home with Warren Central, the Tigers then have a home and home with Ben Davis and FW Snider on the books in coming years.

On 2/27/2024 at 7:45 PM, BTF said:

He's 0-5 in state title games. Two of those games were competitive, so you could say he was close to winning twice. Nonetheless, the man took his team to the championship 5 times............impressive. There are some good programs out there who'd like to just go once............Merrillville and Mishawaka. 

FWIW - Mishawaka has been to championship. They went in 2012, losing to Cathedral 56-29 in the 4A State Championship game. That was smack dab in the middle of the Irish's 5-year championship run between 2010-2014.

MACtion baby!

Per the JGSC Superintendent and reported by Angelo Di Carlo (WHME-TV 46 Sports) - John Barron has resigned from all positions at John Glenn High School, including the head football coach position.

45 minutes ago, wabashalwaysfights said:

Serious question: why is this topic still open?

Why does it need to be closed? If/when any additional information comes out about the situation (as reported by a news source and not a rumor), could/would that not be able to be discussed here?

11 hours ago, Julio said:

Don't need to discuss this here!

Why not? It's an Indiana high school football forum, and this is concerning an Indiana high school football coach. I will agree that rumors and speculation need not run rampant, but forums are literally built to have discussion.

42 minutes ago, FarmerFran said:

It'll be interesting to see how full they let each class get.

Looking at Harrell's site, each class had the following number of teams in last year's sectionals:

5A- 31 ( believe this was down due to school merger but could be wrong)

I believe it was due to the IHSAA changing the rule behind how many points were needed to stay UP a class. 

FW Dwenger had only accumlated 2 points when 3 were/are now needed to stay up a class, so they bumped them down to 4A. I can't remember why they did that MID-CYLCE, but that's why only 31 teams were in 5A. It made Sectional 12 only have 3 teams with FW Snider, FW North, and Anderson.

5 hours ago, Coach Lou said:

Speculation has Goshen, Warsaw, Concord being joined by S.B. Adams in the same sectional.

I would say that is all but a given at this point. Warsaw moves into Mishawaka's slot in the sectional alignment and makes the most sense.

Interesting changes coming next year to the 2 of the "largest" schools in the conference will be bumping down classes.

Warsaw drops 2 spots from 30th to 32nd largest high school in the state, but thanks to FW Snider and Cathedral playing up in 6A due to Success Factor points, they will move to 5A.

Meanwhile, Mishawaka saw a decent drop going from 56th to 66th, and will be playing in class 4A. Will be interesting to see how they group together 4A North and how many NLC schools will be in the same sectional.

Rank / Previous Rank / Enrollment / Class / School
32 / 30 / 2,108 / 5A / Warsaw
38 / 36 / 2,006 / 5A / Goshen
49 / 52 / 1,730 / 5A / Concord
66 / 56 / 1,422 / 4A / Mishawaka
69 / 67 / 1,393 / 4A / Northridge
94 / 92 / 1,054 / 4A / Plymouth
111 / 110 / 895 / 4A / Wawasee
116 / 115 / 869 / 4A / NorthWood

Interesting that every school dropped a spot or two (besides Mishawaka) but the only school that went UP was Concord.

Also of note - the NLC went to the rotating conference schedule recently, while keeping a common opponent for Week 9. Originally, they split it up so that the four 4A schools did not play each other in Week 9, hopefully preventing from teams playing in Week 9 and then meeting up again the very next week in Round 1 of Sectionals.

11 minutes ago, foxbat said:

Speaking of slotting in for Jeff, with Jeff slotting in for Harrison in Sectional 13 in 5A ... Jeff may find post season tough with the likes of Decatur Central and Plainfield in that sectional.

With how 5A is broken out, I do not believe the Lafayette Schools will get paired with Decatur Central and Plainfield.

There are 14 schools that I would say with 99.9% certainty, they will be in 5A North. Those schools are:

Sectional 9: Hammond Central, Hammond Morton, Merrillville, Munster
Sectional 10: Chesterton, LaPorte, Michigan City, Valparaiso
Sectional 11: Concord, Goshen, SB Adams, Warsaw
Sectional 12: FW North, Kokomo and then 2 others

My best guess is they would put the 2 Lafayette schools here. It seems to be their only option, unless they throw in Anderson and break up McCutcheon and Lafayette Jeff. But then, that makes next to no sense and would make things screwy down in 5A South where there are a lot of obvious 2-team groupings. Splitting up the Lafayette schools would cause a ripple effect that would end up breaking apart another twosome. I just don't see the IHSAA doing that, and going instead with something like the below.

Sectional 13: Anderson, East Central, Franklin, Whiteland
Sectional 14: Decatur Central, Plainfield, Terre Haute North, Terre Haute South

Sectional 15: Bloomington North, Bloomington South, Columbus East, Seymour (Same as last cycle)
Sectional 16: Castle, Evansville North, Floyd Central, New Albany (Same as last cycle)

My best guess at 5A Sectional assignments. A lot of them are pretty easy, but a few outliers are going to make things interesting.

OBVIOUS
Sectional 9: Hammond Central, Hammond Morton, Merrillville, Munster
Sectional 10: Chesterton, LaPorte, Michigan City, Valparaiso
Sectional 11: Concord, Goshen, SB Adams, Warsaw

MAYBE?
Sectional 12: FW North, Kokomo, Lafayette Jefferson, McCutcheon

Down in 5A South is where things get a little weird. there are a lot of obvious 2-team groupings, but then what other 2-teams do they pair up with? My best guess will be:

MAYBE?
Sectional 13: Anderson, East Central, Franklin, Whiteland
Sectional 14: Decatur Central, Plainfield, Terre Haute North, Terre Haute South

OBVIOUS (Only because they are the same as the last cylce)
Sectional 15: Bloomington North, Bloomington South, Columbus East, Seymour
Sectional 16: Castle, Evansville North, Floyd Central, New Albany

On 1/11/2024 at 7:43 AM, 00NWP said:

NorthWood had all three levels last year.  Out of curiosity...NorthWood allowed the freshmen team to practice with the upperclassmen throughout the playoffs if they chose to and travel with the team.  Do other schools do the same?  With NW going to State, that may be a once and a life time opportunity to be on a professional field.  Also, you can tell on NorthWood who the freshmen are by the lack of decals on their helmets. 

As @US31 stated - very common. I think Freshman schedules have since changed these days, but back when I played, I swear it went Frosh game Thursday night, Varsity game Friday night, JV game Saturday morning against the same team. And I'm pretty sure I remember playing Concord as a Freshman, our season being completed, but then practicing an extra week with the Varsity team the week they played their sectional game. However, I think only a few freshman actually dressed for the game (I did not as I remember sitting in the stands watching the game).

22 hours ago, 00NWP said:

Who are the 5a powerhouses in the north?  If Valpo drops...that would be about it in the North with Snider moving up to 6a.

That's ultimately the question - would you rather go up against the likes of:

Valparaiso, Merrillville, Warsaw, Chesterton, Michigan City, Kokomo, and Lafayette Jeff (maybe - I'm thinking they could potentially get shifted to 5A South depending on how all this shakes out) in 5A

OR

Leo, East Noble, FW Dwenger, NorthWood, Northridge, New Prairie in 4A?

Obviously every year and/or cycle could be different, but I feel like the Cavemen would be a legit threat every year to represent 4A North as opposed to having to duke it out with Merrillville or Valparaiso in a Regional matchup year after year.

16 hours ago, Cavemenfb38 said:

I'm not quite sure where you're getting your info.  Only 1 time has Mishawaka elected to "play up" into 5A.  It was when Bart was still at Mishawaka.

Yes, I believe you are correct. That is my mistake. It looks like in the last cycle, Mishawaka was among the smallest 5A schools at 1,603 students for the 2021-2022 school year count.

https://www.ihsaa.org/sites/default/files/documents/2022-23 2023-24 Football Alignment.pdf

But yet, kind of crazy to see the counts listed here in another thread show Mishawaka at 1,463 students for the 2022-2023 school year (right on the 5A/4A cutline) and then the most recent thread for this year's numbers is showing them down even more at 1,422 students for this school year, 2023-2024, well within 4A.

That is part of the reason why I had thought they had always been, enrollment wise, a class 4A size school but playing up in class 5A. The 2018-2019 school year figure also had them at 1,477 student, which was right around the cutline of 5A and 4A.

16 hours ago, Cavemenfb38 said:

They've also won atleast 1 regional in the 6 class Era.  They beat Lowell in the regional and lost to Dwenger in the SS.

That is correct, in 2018. However, that was a 4A Regional Title, not a 5A Regional Title, which was the point I was originally trying to make, but mispoke.

1 hour ago, BTF said:

The following makes sense to me geographically: 

Sectional 1: Penn, Crown Point, Portage, Lake Central

Sectional 2: Carroll, Snider, Northrop, Elkhart

Sectional 3: Westfield, Noblesville, Harrison, Homestead

Sectional 4: Zionsville, Carmel, Fishers, HSE

I am betting they send Harrison to Sectional 1. I feel like there is precedent with sending Lafayette schools to "The Region". If that's the case, I'd see something like this

Sectional 1: Crown Point, Harrison, Lake Central, Portage

Sectional 2: Carroll, Elkhart, Penn, Snider (wow!)

Sectional 3: Fishers, Hamilton Southeastern, Homestead, Northrop

Sectional 4: Carmel, Noblesville, Westfield, Zionsville