JustRules

It's possible some of the Marion County township districts have it. Although I think they try to spread out each school to represent the district and not just serve as neighborhood schools. Many of them are centrally located. But I would think in Pike, Washington and Lawrence Township the disparity from one side of the district to the other is similar. They all have some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Indy and also some of the poorest neighborhoods.

I went to college with people who had graduating classes of less than 15! My freshman roommate had a class of 14 and I think I met most of them that year. 7 of them went to college in the same city we did.

It's close but if you go frame by frame the ball starts moving one frame after he starts moving forward. You don't want officials to be that technical.

I'm not an expert, but I don't believe that's the case. In most states it's just treated as another class of football. There could be participation numbers that come into play, but it's not adding another sport.

Where I grew up we often had 2-3 hour drives for all our conference games! For basketball they would play the sophomore game at 4p, the JV game at 5:30p and the varsity game at 7:30. The sophomores would get out of school at noon, eat lunch together and then hit the road. JV and varsity road together in a charter bus (players, coaches, managers, and cheerleaders) and would usually leave around 2:00 arriving around halftime of the sophomore game. I missed a lot of classes in those years, but we always made up the work. Great memories too from those road trips.

I've been to several swim meets where the swimmer had to be there at 6:30a. And it was for 2 or 3 days. Sometimes you drive back and forth. Sometimes you get a hotel and spend the weekend. Those were some of my favorite memories as my kids were growing up.

I look at it like people who hunt or golf or fish or fly airplanes. I have a side gig that I spend a lot of time doing, but at the end of the day best case i break even and it doesn't cost me money. That's hard to beat. And I get to meet some of the best people out there and be a part of the game we all love.

Indiana thinks they have small schools. There aren't any really small schools. Some of those upper midwest states have enrollments of less than 50 for all 4 grades.

I haven't been to a Colts game yet, but did they have fans sitting in the 400-600 levels?

Many people stay for more than 1 game so you would have more than 7700 per game. I think the estimates usually for the biggest crowds was in the 10k range. And there are plenty of empty seats at that especially in the end zone. That's why I'm thinking full capacity of the lower levels might be around 20-25k. That would put 25% at the 5-6k range in the lower 2 levels.

One thing i wonder is if the number if based on full capacity of LOS or the planned levels they were going to use. In order to get to 16k you would have to use the upper level. Does the IHSAA want to pay for extra staff to cover ushers and concessions and cleaning crew for the upper level to get to 16k? I'm thinking not. It will probably be 25% of whatever is allows in the 100 and 200 levels which is probably still a pretty big number that would allow more than just parents.

Agree with Bob. With pushes like this you also have to ask if he was pushing the runner or pushing the pile. NCAA got rid of the push aspect of the Assisting the Runner foul a couple years ago so this would be legal in NCAA regardless. Pushing the runner to assist him is a foul by rule already in NFHS. But as Bob mentioned it's a judgement call by the covering official. It's likely going to have to be obvious to be called.

There are dozens of systems around the country for evaluating officials and determining postseason advancement. They are all flawed. As Bob says though, it's a zero sum game. If there are 140 crews that applied for the tournament and 48 of them get a sectional final, 92 are going to feel they got screwed. If you come up with a different rating system, 92 of them are still going to feel they were screwed. If they get angry enough they will also quit. Same result just a different group. Either way the IHSAA loses officials. By my count 36 crews were eligible for 24 regional final games so no matter what system is used 12 of them are going to feel slighted if they don't advance. There is no system that allows all 36 crews to advance. I have friends who officiate in the NCAA and NFL and guess what...they bitch about their playoff assignment system. They are graded on every play and too many downgrades will keep you from a post season assignment, but several officials have similar ratings at the end of the year so the supervisor's opinion plays a huge factor. If you don't get the best bowl assignment you assume he doesn't like you. Or if you go a couple years without a postseason assignment you feel it's not fair. One NFL official told me one theory for them is the NFL decides mid-season which officials they want in the Super Bowl and suddenly all their close calls get graded correct and a couple close calls for other officials are downgraded. Likely not true but that's there perception. I do feel any system that provides significant weight to a coach vote is a completely flawed system. There is no way to logically justify it. How would coaches like it if parents decided if they got to keep their job for the next year? Of if the media would get to vote after a game and decide who advances? But this system is easy for the IHSAA to administer and takes very little effort other than data to set up the rating process. They get a number assigned to each official or crew depending on the sport and slot people based on objective data. But the inputs of that data is very flawed and not at all based on any input from any non-biased individual who understands the rules, mechanics and philosophies of officiating.

It's not the bad votes that kill you. It's the fact you don't have all the extra friendly votes the crews that generally advance get. Those crews get just as many bad votes and others. They just get a lot of extra 5s from people they knew through a variety of legitimate sources. Your bad votes may keep you in the first round rather than the second round, but it's not what is preventing you from advancing deep into the tournament. The single most common denominator for the crews that advance is deep advancement (especially by the referee) into the basketball tournament. Those guys are working in HSs throughout the year and once they start to get momentum in basketball it starts to improve their football rating. We call it the coach's vote, but the ballot is actually sent to the AD. They have a lot of say as well. I encourage all crews to check with the IHSAA as well (not now but when things quiet down). I've heard crews inquire about the general rating of the "unknown" crews. More often than not those votes are 4s and 5s. Some schools just like to vote for everyone and when they do it's usually positive. Don't diminish the value of those votes.

I believe it's also being offered a spot on the team. Others may still come and try out, but those extended an invite are being asked to join the team. No different than D3. They still have students "commit" to the school, but it's a very different kind of commitment than scholarship offers.

Warsaw is #3 in their sectional and may have been #4 behind Snider. They are only separated by 4 points. Many of the 5A/6A sectionals are so close to begin with it's less of an indicator. In that sectional Homestead is currently 86..31, Carroll is 81.28, Warsaw is 74.36, and Snider is 70.36. Perry is still well below Ben Davis and Southport in their sectional and 10 points ahead of Tech. I don't know where they were before the update. They only moved up 1 spot in the class from 31 or 32 to 30 which is not significant. With only 4 teams in most sectionals 5A and 6A are less applicable to this analysis. Several of the 1v3 matchups came from these classes.

There's a good chance a percentage of Chatard students live in the IPS district. They may have been a part of the CYO program and attend a diocese parish, but if they attended their assigned public school they could have gone to Tech.

Good point. I'm using the current numbers on Harrell's site which probably are current. I would think they would change significantly though. It's possible #2 and #3 were close going in and swapped places after the first two rounds. If they were that close the general principle still applies. If someone saved the final Sagarin ratings following week 9 it would be interesting to see how much these trends still held.

NCAA started using that philosophy/rule 3-4 years ago so it wasn't unprecedented. They are guided to do this if an incident involves most of the players from both teams. It does result in the ejection of any player who had received a UNS earlier in the game or receives one later.

Of the 48 sectional championship games (including LCC in sectional 42), 39 of them have the #1 seed playing in the sectional final. The 3 that aren't include Floyd Central (lost to Jeffersonville), Kankakee Valley (lost to Culver Acadmies), and Eastbroo (lost to Tipton). The last two were very close in Sagarin rating so weren't big upsets. Floyd Central was a 20-point favorite. Of the 48 sectional final games, 25 are 1 v. 2 and 13 more are 1 vs. 3. Looing at 1A-4A there are 32 sectional finals and only 3 of them involve teams not in the top half of the sectional per Sagarin. They are 18 Logansport (5), 23 Martinsville (5), and 30 Washington (6). I didn't do the same for 5A and 6A because in those sectionals #3 is in the bottom half and often a very good team. With all the great games this week this is what a seeded tournament could look like each year for the sectional final. Sagarin isn't always right on a mirco level but it proves to be fairly accurate again from a macro level.

Technically it's treated as it was at the time of a kick. It could the continuation of a legal Kick. It could also be continuation of a backward pass (nothing substantially different in this case). It's extremely unlikely that it could also be the continuation of a legal forward pass but that would involve kicking the pass while it's in flight. It's so unlikely it's not worth discussing. The biggest critical one though is illegally kicking a ball that is still a kick. Let's say the K attempted to punt the ball, but it was blocked. It's still rolling around behind the LTG and a member of K then kicks it from the ground down field where it's recovered by another K player beyond the LTG. If you treat this as a loose ball ball following an illegal kick treated as a fumble then you would give K a first down. But it's a loose ball following an illegal kick that was a continuation of a kick is still a kick so it would be first touching by K and R is awarded a new series at the spot of touching. Then K's foul for an illegal kick could be tacked on from there.

They do have a beautiful campus near Mass Ave and great football facilities. It's one of the best environments in Marion County and would be awesome if the stadium was full. Schools with a large number of low income students have different challenges than most people realize if they have never been involved with them. Tech can be successful, but it takes a great coaching staff and non-pandemic circumstances.

Agreed. I look at it if the front line players would be in danger of getting hit while fielding the ball in the air then it's a pop-up kick. If it's coming down well before any K player would get to it then it's fine. If it pops up and would land 15-20 yards downfield then it's probably fine. The challenge is you can't wait that long to make the decision since it's a foul immediately. But that's a good way to understand when the foul occurs.

NCAA passed a rule regarding the pop-up kick a year or two prior to NFHS. The difference is NCAA treats it as if it has not hit the ground. This means the returner has full protection to complete the catch and they can fair catch it. The ball remains live. We had already referred to this as a pop-up kick and what you call a pop-up kick we referred to as a pooch kick.

There is no halo rule. It only states you have to give him an opportunity to catch the ball, but you can hit him legally as soon as he does. Your BSB reference is from the NFL. Each level has their own rules and some are very different. In NFHS BSB only has to be forceful contact who doesn't have an opportunity to see it coming and defend himself. They are often going in opposite directions and the blocker is often moving back toward their own goal line, but those are not mentioned in the rule.