Bonecrusher

Thought I was reading a Texas football forum for a sec. @foxbat makes some good points. If you stay with the all-in format, I don't know what the diff would be, aside from not having big schools play small schools, except maybe old conference rivalries could go away. 6A in IN might have difficulty finding a large enough mix of schools to change scheduling without some really long drives to opponents. In TX, you have non-district (first part of season) where you can play whoever you want and results don't count towards playoff seeding. Some look at it as a long "pre-season". In district play all teams are the same classification. We always tried to schedule a few larger schools or opponents we knew would give us a tough game (referred to as "toughening them up for district") and a few we thought we could handle to let the 2nd string get some meaningful experience. Again, there's a lot of schools - all sizes - in TX to choose from, and used to making long commutes semi-regularly (1 hour +). Also, with less schools to pick from it might be more of an issue, but districts in TX are re-aligned every two years. Some teams will stay in your district, and some new will come in, or you'll move to a different one - depends on how you look at it. So you're not playing the same teams year after year, but could be different in IN. The one thing it would reduce, as mentioned before, are the small school vs. large school games. I personally don't get that whole thing after living in TX for almost 20 years. Maybe it's the larger number of schools, football culture, whatever, but you would never have a 2A playing a 5A here. A semi-final 2A team would get smoked by an average 5A team, if for no other reason than attrition. 2A probably half to 2/3 of the guys play both ways where the 5A has 2-platoon and plenty of subs. My kids school (large 2A) never played anyone larger than a small (4A) team in non-district a couple times who was known to be a below average program. We did play above average 3A when we could. Apologies if this sounds like I'm rambling, but I am. Time constrained to post this, and lots of thought all at once.

Just now saw this thread. Looks like Heritage put it to Bluffton pretty good. Was the game actually as lopsided as the score, or was it one of those where the score is misleading? It appears that Heritage has a chance to finish second in the ACAC. Should win their last 2 games, while Bluffton probably has their hands full with AC, and Franklin is an unknown to me. Heritage is going to have to find something for that sectional with Mississinewa & Luers easily the top 2. Don't know about Oak Hill & Delta; their records aren't as good but maybe SOS is more difficult? Nice to see Heritage with some success again.

My wife is a Southern Wells grad. I see they are in a 4-way tie for the most azz whoopin's on the victim's list. Wow. Kudos to those kids for padding up to practice and play every week. That has to be a good lesson in perseverance.

In Texas that is a 6-man score.

Luers wins by single digits.

AC by a TD.

Panthers by 14

But does Merillville have city speed? Snider wins in single digits.

Answered my question. Thank you sir.

Wondering that myself, if Mishawaka exposed a weakness in the Snider D or if the run-oriented offense worked to open up the passing game that could have conceivably burned any legit D. If Snider has done well vs. other passing schemes that may have been a one-off.

I don't disagree with any of your comments. There's a lot of moving pieces and timing that go into that style of play. If a team does it well and has a good D, like Warsaw, they're hard to beat. It is interesting to watch, however for me it slows down the game too much. OTOH, I'm not a big fan of the pass happy "greatest show on turf" style either. I like to see a balanced offense. This obviously boils down to a matter of personal preference, and I can appreciate and respect your view on it. Being a former resident of NE Indiana, I hope Warsaw does well.

Interesting thread and read about Warsaw's offense. Not sure how many large schools down here are run-heavy, but there's a fair amount of small schools that like the option/wishbone/flexbone-style of offense. There's a team about an hour away from me that typically will use up the entire 40-second clock every play, in addition to running the ball 98% of the time. They played a team earlier this season that scores practically at will (one of your perennial powerhouses) and they held that team to 21 points. They still lost, 21-0, but considered holding that particular team to 21 a moral win. No offense (pun intended) to anyone, to each his own, but I find that style of play very boring. Playing keep away is fine if you got the D to stop the other team, which it appears Warsaw has so far, so props to them. I remember several games when my kids were in school, where we could shut down that 3 yards and a cloud of dust scheme, next thing they know it's the middle of the 2nd quarter and that running team is down by 3-4 scores. Hard to catch up at that point. Good on Warsaw for being competitive with that style of O. I just think at some point they will run into a team that can stop it, then that slow clock-eating offense works against you. JMO, don't flame me too bad for it.

Should be a really good one, and I'm like you, not expecting a blowout. All the cliche's about who has the ball more, who scores last, who makes the least mistakes should come into play here. That's very true. Some legit experience for the younger guys could go a long way this time of year. "The backup is only one play away from being a starter..."

FW North Side at #10 in 5A? Early on in the season OK, but seeing how things have developed for them, and their record, this is a bit of a head-scratcher for me.

That's pretty cool! It's the right sized venue for that size of team and almost literally just down the road - with a right turn at Reed. Agree it's pretty ironic that the top football income generating school in the FWCS doesn't have it's own house.