Bonecrusher

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.

Would love to see Heritage pull this one out, but realistically it seems - from what I've read - AC should be the favored team. If ya'll were playing anyone else, I'd be pulling for you. Good to see Heritage working their way back up the ladder. Talk about timing, the wife and I are going to be visiting family in IN, and we'll be up there next Friday. If we were going to be there this week, I would have tried to check this one out. Last time I been to AC I was still in high school! Hope it's a good competitive game. A blowout either way does neither team any good at this point.

Snider shares Spuller Stadium with Northrop. The stadium is on Northrop's campus. It's a good sized place, very similar to FW Wayne's stadium. The field in your post at Snider's campus is, IIRC, used for practice/track meets/sub-varsity games. Snider is pretty land-locked. There's a thread somewhere on here, from the last 1-2 years, about Snider getting there own stadium and why it hasn't worked out so far. The two schools are only maybe 10-15 minutes apart.

Go Heritage (Monroeville) Patriots! First time since I've been on this site that I seen them with a mention in the IFCA poll... that I can remember.

Bingo! All programs have peaks and valleys. but down here where football is king, the schools with solid youth programs seem to be more consistent top performers. Case-in-point, my youngest son was the only kid in his 7th grade class that played youth football prior to then. The first part of the season he already knew and had a good grasp on what the coaches were trying to teach the other kids. Imagine if all the kids playing that year had enough experience to know most of the fundamentals they teach at that level, and already have an understanding of a very simplified version of the offense/defense that the school ran - they would have been so far ahead. One of our opponents, who is the textbook definition of a perennial powerhouse team, had a fantastic youth program. They hit the ground running in 7th grade and it was very easy to tell the difference between them and schools like ours whose kids were just trying to figure it out.