NLCTigerFan07

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

I know it's early, but figured why not kick things off while I am sitting here watching college bowl games and browsing the new enrollment figures that were recently released.

It'll be interesting to see what ulitmately ends up happening, but it appears that Warsaw will move into 5A for the next cycle, and because of that, I would not be surprised if Mishawaka finally decides to drop down to 4A.

The Cavemen have requested to stay in 5A for years even though they are 4A enrollment, but I believe that was mostly strategic on their part. 5A North has rarely been a juggarnaut, specifically their sectional grouping. They may go ahead and stay in 5A, but in the past when they made that decision, Warsaw, Merrillville, and Valpariaso were not all in 5A north as well. That has changed in recent years, and it is not as if Mishawaka has killed it in the 5A tournament. 

4 Sectional titles in the last 5 years, but no Regional titles in the 6-class era. Would/could the Cavemen benefit from dropping down to 4A? NorthWood, Northridge, and New Prairie (maybe) would make for (likely) difficult Sectional opponents, but they've competed just fine against both as conference foes. No school in "The Region" would/should phase Mishawaka, which could lead to more Regional Titles, and then likely facing a team like Leo, East Noble, or Dwenger in a Semi-State wouldn't scare them either.

I would not be surprised in the slightest to see Mishawaka elect to go ahead and stay in their "true" enrollment classification of 4A this next cycle and for the foreseeable future.

12 minutes ago, BTF said:

My error, Mishawaka is 4A. They should should challenge Northwood for supremacy up north. 

I dunno - they have selected/requested to be in 5A for YEARS at this point. I'm not sure why they would want to drop to 4A now, but also, when they made the decision in the past, Merrillville, Valpariaso, and Warsaw were all in 6A the majority of that time. Now with those schools in 5A north, I think you might be right, they may look to go into 4A finally.

If Mishawaka stay in 5A... Sectionals likely look like this

Sectional 9: Hammond Central, Hammond Morton, Merrillville, Munster

Sectional 10: Chesterton, LaPorte, Michigan City, Valparaiso

Sectional 11: SB Adams, Concord, Goshen, Mishawka

Sectional 12: Kokomo, Lafayette Jefferson, McCutcheon, Warsaw

5A south could go a number of different ways, but more liekly than not would be some combinantion of these groupings, but the below PAIRS would definitely be stuck together. There are a number of ways you could piece these sectionals together.

Anderson and East Central

Decatur Central and Plainfield

Terre Haute North and South

Bloomington North and South

Evansville North and Castle

Floyd Central and New Albany

Columbus East and Seymour

Whiteland and Franklin

However, if Mishawaka goes ahead and drops to 4A, you would just move Warsaw into their spot, and FW North Side would move up to 5A and into Warsaw's spot. Or you could interchange Warsaw and FW North Side I suppose.

Sectional 9: Hammond Central, Hammond Morton, Merrillville, Munster

Sectional 10: Chesterton, LaPorte, Michigan City, Valparaiso

Sectional 11: SB Adams, Concord, Goshen, Warsaw

Sectional 12: Kokomo, Lafayette Jefferson, McCutcheon, FW North Side

2 hours ago, qbcoach13 said:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/viewer?mid=1tvJ-o3tt6pEhP9Vf6JfHXRZGG-vN7t0&ll=40.656812781162095%2C-86.30733850653431&z=7

Here is my 4a, 5a, 6a sectional predictions. 

You are missing FW Northrop in 6A. There are 4 Fort Wayne area schools that will be in 6A with Carroll, Homestead, Northrop and Snider.

I would put Northrop in that "black" sectional with Homestead, HSE, and Fishers and then move Noblesville to your "green" sectional that only has 3 teams on your map (Carmel, Westfield, and Zionsville)

21 hours ago, BTF said:

Jeff and Warsaw in 5A North makes the top half of the bracket ultra interesting. With Valpo, Merrillville, and Mishawaka already there, 5A North will be battle tested and ready to defend North's two year win streak against the likes of Decatur Central or East Central. 

Is Mishawaka staying in 5A? In what was shared above, they are showing Mishawka as the 4th largest school in 4A?