temptation

Hilarious.

We will find out some of what we need to know this Friday though Fishers and HSE played a classic in the regular season last fall and HSE blew their doors off in the postseason.

WAY less than 10%.

17-4 on the season. Carmel @ Trinity (KY): The 'Hounds got back on track last week with a blowout win over King (MI) and now will travel south to take on a Trinity (KY) team that seems to be a shell of its former self as they are under .500 and were blown out by Center Grove last week. I expect a low scoring slugfest here. Gimme Carmel 20-14. IMG Academy (FL) @ Ben Davis: Let me be clear here...I am more intrigued by this game than I was a month ago and am NOT enough of a Hoosier homer to take the Giants here but I do think they can hold their own for at least a half. I would love nothing more than to be wrong here but I'm taking the visitors fairly comfortably. IMG has 20+ 3/4 star guys loaded with SEC/P5 offers. BD maybe has a half dozen guys who are 3+ star quality. IMG wins 38-17. Lawrence North @ North Central: The Panthers, putting it kindly, are becoming an extra bye week for MIC schools. Lawrence North was a big surprise winner in my book last week and can get away with a let down game as NC won't provide much resistance. Wildcats here 34-7. Moeller (OH) @ Center Grove: Man, Moeller will be happy to see some teams from the Buckeye state though I am not sure they will fare much better once they cross state lines. They will exit Greenwood 1-3 against Indiana competition after Friday night and were thought to be a pretty damn good team. That's a testament to Indiana high school football in my opinion. Center Grove will continue to do what they do and get better each week. Trojans win here 38-14. Pike @ Southport: I really have no pulse on this game as both teams are struggling mightily. I will go with Pike but I am not confident about it. Red Devils win here 23-21. Warren Central @ Lawrence Central: Warriors got a much needed first win at home against NC last week whereas LC was beaten by their township rival. LC has sorta flipped the script here and is the favorite in this east side rivalry. I am betting the Bears can't wait to hit the field for this one to get the taste of disappointment from last week out of their mouths. Its close early and then the damn breaks. LC wins 30-20. What say you?

19-1 on the season...some real tough ones this week. Brownsburg @ Avon: This has become a one-sided west side rivalry and unfortunately for Avon, 2023 will not be the year Orioles break the streak. Brownsburg survived an early scare last week at home but should have little trouble here. Gimme the Dogs 38-14. Hamilton Southeastern @ Fishers: The in-state game for the week in front of what will once again be a standing room only crowd. An underrated, relatively knew rivalry that we could once again see multiple times. These two have had some classics recently and I don't expect this one to be any different. I am going to take the home team in a mild upset. Gimme Fishers 30-28. Noblesville @ Westfield: Well folks, I may have fallen for it again...after two consecutive quality wins to open the season, the Millers returned to earth with a thud against a good Fishers team last week. Westfield was down early before rallying to beat a good Zionsville team. Not falling for this one again Noblesville. I will take Westfield 38-27. Zionsville @ Franklin Central: This should be another solid game as Zionsville made Westfield sweat last week which shows they are capable of playing with the top half teams in the conference. The Flashes, as mentioned above, made Brownsburg sweat for nearly three quarters last week before falling by two scores. I'll take FC here 24-17. What say you?

To me, a conference's strength is determined by its middle tier/bottom teams. Luers and Dwenger being down unfortunately hurts the conference's perception as they are usually players at the state level in their respective classes. I remember the days, when it was a legitimate discussion that the SAC could win 3 of the 6 state titles and at the top it appears Snider (sorry Carroll) is the only one with a shot in their class.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Kenneth Grant earned a game ball after Michigan football defeated East Carolina last Saturday, and for good reason. The sophomore defensive tackle was only credited with a lone quarterback hurry against the Pirates, but he impacted the game throughout the afternoon. The highlight came midway through the first quarter, when a stunt got him free to the QB, forcing an early throw and creating Mike Sainristil’s interception. Later in the half, a would-be hurry and big hit were negated by a holding penalty. While the hard stats don’t pop off the page, Grant’s PFF grade — 85.5 in 20 snaps — and the 11 ECU rushes stopped for two yards or fewer better reflect his impact. And watching from afar as he served a suspension, Jim Harbaugh took notice: “KG to me was the guy,” Harbaugh said on In the Trenches with Jon Jansen. “Kenneth Grant, his ascension as a football player. I mean, he was a gift from the football gods when he showed up. But he just keeps getting better and better. “Some of the moves, the athleticism he showed, all the things we see every single day. Got that pressure that really caused that interception to be thrown just a little bit short. A little bit, right there where Mike could make a great play. Had another really good pressure and hurry and hit on the quarterback. They were throwing the ball quick, but KG was getting there. His presence was felt.” The former four-star prospect — once described as a “gift from the football gods” by Harbaugh — appeared in all 14 games in 2022. He’s poised to step into a bigger role on the interior for the Wolverines following Mazi Smith’s departure to the NFL. Grant forms part of the rotation with Kris Jenkins, Mason Graham, Rayshaun Benny and Cam Goode. “I think Kenneth Grant’s gonna be a name everyone’s gonna know about. He’s a monster in the middle and has a chance to be a really, really dominant type of player here,” defensive coordinator Jesse Mintersaid this spring. Grant met with the media late last month to discuss his expectations for his sophomore season. Here’s what he said: On his offseason weight loss of 20 pounds: Coach Herb did a really good job. I really focused with him and Abigail on nutrition to really get down and be compact and put more muscle on. I'm definitely happy with that. I move a lot better. Really just working out heavy. I started creatine — that really helped. It gave me a lot of energy. On how he’s changed as a player in Year 2 after the weight loss: It changed me a lot. I could be on the field a lot more. I have a lot more stamina. Our conditioning test, that really helped. I passed it with ease, to be honest. What you should expect is me to be on the field more, not just on run downs. I can contribute on the pass, too, and go for long drives. On the players he’s learned from the most at Michigan: Really our whole D-line. We be together in the meeting room just to help each other out. It's never like, who’s a leader? We're all leaders in that room, so we help each other out. On players he tries to imitate: Vita Vea. I really look at his film a lot. He's a very style guy. He's a pass rusher, but he can dominate the run pretty well. So I try to model my game off of that. … I describe my game just like him. I showed that this fall camp. That’s what I base my game off of. On how he and Mason Graham teach each other: It’s an everyday battle. Every time we go onto the field, after a play, we look at the play. He tells me things that I could do better, and I tell him things that he could do better. It's just getting to know each other — I wouldn't say getting to know each other, but knowing each other's tendencies and trying to fix them. … He has a really good pass rush game. He’s very stout and strong. You wouldn’t think he’s strong, but he’s really strong.

“NBC said the Peacock-exclusive game between Michigan and East Carolina is the most-streamed college football game in NBC Sports’ history.“ LOL.

Meanwhile IU and Purdue can’t run the ball effectively in week 1 home losses…lol.

Is North Side healthy yet?

Oops. Good call. Where IS Moeller in Ohio in your opinion?

Georgia Florida State Michigan Alabama Penn State USC Ohio State Notre Dame Tennessee Washington Utah Texas Oregon Oklahoma LSU Oregon State Kansas State Wisconsin North Carolina Texas A&M Duke Mississippi Colorado TCU Clemson

Is the gap between the haves and the have nots as big as its ever been in this conference? @BTF? Seems like a bunch of yawners and just waiting for the Carroll/Snider showdown…

True.

1. BD vs CG is so damn hard to gauge right now because I don’t know the legitimacy of either of CG’s wins due to them being out of state. Of course, Moeller is BD’s biggest win and I agree that they were overrated to start the season. Wish we could see these two in the regular season. We will at least have some common opponents to compare them soon. I‘m just growing tired of the “Penn is back” narrative. I fell for it after the Valpo win and was once again basing their preseason ranking on past glory. I do think that they are an average 6A program that could hold their own in 5A and need to see a legitimate win over an Indy power (hell even a competitive loss) to buy back in.

Did they dress? How many can you dress for a Big Ten home game?

1. Michigan 2. Penn State 3. Ohio State 4. Wisconsin 5. Maryland 6. Iowa 7. Illinois 8. Minnesota 9. Nebraska 10. Michigan State 11. Rutgers 12. Purdue 13. Indiana 14. Northwestern

Biddings?

Not cranky…just making a joke and holding folks accountable for their words…that’s all.

I’m teasing. No doubt it is.

So cultural differences, specific only to varsity football, expire in 2024? Got it.

Love the whataboutism. Not sure why I’m surprised.

MRI…sprained knee according to what I’m hearing.

Not much diversity in that photo…the MIC 6 are offended just looking at it.

Let’s have some fun with this… BD hosts IMG Friday whereas CG hosts Moeller. Moeller will be a good way to compare the two (and they’ll soon be 0-3 against Indiana schools). Let’s see how this plays out. I don’t expect BD to win but we will have another data point late Friday night.