PDB26

I think they did. I'm pretty sure those are just school buses. Not that it mattered in the outcome, but that's surprising.

I don't know that becoming employees of the athletic department necessarily means the athletes couldn't be subject to academic eligibility standards. Wait, which case, Alston?

Disagree with 2 for the same reason that I agree with 3––I think that makes the tournament interesting and great. I like that the best team might have to go play in a hostile environment at some point during the tournament. I know you're not saying the regular season needs to be more meaningful, but I wonder if sometimes we're stretching too far to find ways to make things more meaningful than they already are or should be to the boys on the field, the coaches on the sidelines, and the fans in the stands or stuck at home catching it on the radio or streaming it. I don't want to be the guy dropping movie quotes like somebody's annoying uncle, but––it's my favorite scene in any football movie––in Friday Night Lights the QB is getting pitched on an in-home visit and the second coach asks him if he likes playing football and says, with the most earnest smile, "it's supposed to be fun ya know, greatest game in the world."

Ellison is an interesting player. He's very effective as a runner. I don't quite have a gauge on his size or speed after watching him twice, but he is not small or slow even if he isn't big or fast. He almost seems like the kind of player who probably ends up as a safety/nickel/special teamer on a college roster.

I could see some trouble if they're showing up on a school bus, but there aren't any serious 6A programs that are making that mistake, are there?

Does anyone know if Mishawaka took care of the visitor's locker room when they renovated Steele Stadium? Because if you know, you know.

A 6A program playing down a class could do much, much worse than playing Merrillville and Valpo, and it's not like CP didn't handle their business in those games––or any other game. The big challenge for 6A programs in northern Indiana is to find quality competition for their varsity and jv teams.

Generally, I'm disinclined to see wins over 5A opponents as a statement by a 6A contender. A statement win for this CP team tonight is only possible if they blow Penn's doors off. I'd probably say it's the same for the regional. Any win in the semi state would probably count as a statement win. I think that's just the reality of 6A ball.

Yeah, don't count those guys out until they're gone. Opponents are 68-32 this year holy wow. Most of the remaining field in the south is a nightmare––surprise.

I think you could, to some degree, throw out the Mishawaka tape when evaluating Penn's defense. An inexperienced group with a challenging assignment in week 2. They have no doubt improved. I suppose it's worth noting that CP and Penn have two common opponents whom they both beat. But, CP is head and shoulders better than any team Penn has played since the last time these two met, and this Penn team certainly feels inferior to CP. Certainly a red flag for CP's aspirations if it's a close game, more so if Penn puts up some points.

That seems about right to me, although not all 7 point victories are the same. A 7 point win in a higher scoring game would have to be some cause for concern, but that seems unlikely to me.

Agree. I also think there's a psychological preference for getting taken out by a team you're used to seeing in that position as opposed to rising programs like Crown Point and Carroll. Could just be me, though.

Yeah, hard to imagine Penn can exploit the passing game like last season even if CP's defense turns out to be about the same.

But only kind of.

Michigan has relatively few consolidated districts and the nearest similarly-sized schools are around Grand Rapids. The Portage and Berrien County schools are basically 4A/3A schools. Penn already travels regularly to The Region in most sports, and I'm not so certain that getting to Warsaw or Wawasee in January is going to be more than marginally better than getting out to Merrillville or Lake Central. Still, point taken. The NIC isn't split into divisions anymore, and the schools play a round robin––which exacerbates the problem. Penn has proved they can lose games they have no business losing over the past four seasons, but scheduling more schools outside of 6A/5A, at least for varsity games, isn't much of a solution to this problem.

Agreed. Definite limitations. The NIC has been bad and getting worse for football for 30 years. It's about as bad for football as it has ever been now that we're back to running the league like it's 1990 and playing a full round robin.

Sure, high schoolers can find a way to lose any game, but I'll be surprised if Snider doesn't win by two scores. I know you Fort Wayne guys don't like Sagarin, but after seeing the human polls I thought I'd cross reference with the computer. There is a clear line where you can say "one or two of these schedules are not like the others." 16 Snider – schedule 34 17 Noblesville – schedule 13 18 Lawrence Central – schedule 11 ____________________________THIS IS THE LINE BTW______________________________ 19 Elkhart – schedule 103 20 Penn – schedule 88 ________________AND ACTUALLY THERE IS ANOTHER LINE HERE________________ 21 Carmel – schedule 15 22 Zionsville – schedule 4 23 Homestead – schedule 31 The only other teams that have worse schedules in 6A than than Elkhart and Penn are Jeffersonville (158) and Tech (252), and Crown Point (57) is the only team in the top 20 with a schedule outside of the top 35.

Penn was 5-12 passing against Valpo. All five completions were to one receiver and three or four were for scores. I think the best explanation is that Valpo's defense was not/is not very good and they got jumped a little bit by Watson's explosive athletic ability.

Hell of a player in his day. What's Pete doing differently with the coaching staffs this year?

My mistake, I forgot that is the way it went––which makes it even worse given the state of Central's program back then. Penn's teams play so many games against Duneland members that it would seem to be a fairly seamless integration into the conference. Can't really speak to whether there is a consensus among the fans on conference affiliation, but there might be after a 7 game NIC season this year.

For the most part, for as good as Carmel and Center Grove have been, I'd say it's BD and WC that have always generated the most lopsided scores. That doesn't change much of the analysis, but I think history bears out that a championship caliber team at either of those schools is more likely than not to run it up at state. This held true before 6A. I think the only difference is offenses are more explosive now––so the margins get way out there sometimes––but Penn was on the wrong end of some ugly beatings at the hands of BD in the 90s even if they were just three score games.

Agreed, I don't think I'm too far out on a limb when I say ND would not be interested in this deal.

Penn erred by not leaving the NIC without Mishawaka in the early 00s and it would be an error to hold out for Elkhart's inclusion should Penn have the opportunity to join the DAC without them. That said, I think the DAC would need to add two schools to give itself some flexibility in scheduling while providing value to all the members. Depends on the deal, but ND is loathe to rent facilities without also guaranteeing/requiring the presence of its ushers. ND's concessionaire would almost certainly have rights to the event. Certainly, the facility manager would be there.

No disrespect, but isn't Homestead, at best, the third strongest program in the Fort Wayne area? Maybe Penn should play them. Penn has had some high-profile blowups over the years––games in 2003, 2011, 2017 and their almost entirely uncompetitive series with Cathedral come to mind––but does that mean Penn has a mental hangup with the Indy schools or has Snider just not had enough opportunities to go out there and lay an egg or two? Sure, they beat Warren Central last year, so they're 1-1 against them since 2004 (4-4 all time). And Snider beat Ben Davis in 1992, but they haven't played the Giants since their game in 2002 (1-1). Neither Snider (2011) nor Penn (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023) have beaten Cathedral. Penn is 1-1 against Center Grove with the most recent result a loss in a competitive state final in 2015. Against Carmel, Penn is 4-7 (They last played in 2017 and Penn won, 34-7), and Snider is 4-9 (They last played in 2018, and Snider last won in 2004, 40-22). Penn's problem isn't mental. Sometimes its physical and others, I think, the conservative offensive approach catches up with them and the defense ends up getting big-played to death once the offense turns into a three-and-out machine.

All I can say for sure is that '02 Penn and '03 Warren Central would have been a great high school football game.