Bonecrusher

Yuuup. Was wondering about that myself.

New Haven (really struggling not to type Dekalb) East Noble Columbia City Norwell

I'm 100% with you bro! (Michigan whooping Ohio State) What I wouldn't give to see that. Interesting chat regarding the SA ranking. Seems AC has had their number as of late, but pretty much anyone on AC's schedule could say that. FWIW from an outsider, I think SA is def worth being ranked in pre-season, maybe not top 3. Somewhere in 5-10, absolutely. Be interesting to see how it plays out.

Ditto

Columbia City East Noble Dekalb Norwell Huntington North Leo Eastbrook South Adams

Dwenger at North Side: DEWNGER Luers at Wayne: WAYNE Snider at Carroll: CARROLL South Side at Northrop: NORTHROP Homestead at Concordia: HOMESTEAD

Hope you're right!

Adams Central South Adams Heritage Jay County Eastside Bluffton (have to pick one upset) Fremont

Heritage. Being an alum, would love to see them turn the corner and have a strong winning season Columbia City Dekalb Eastbrook, won't even be close. Leo in a squeaker. New Haven Norwell by several scores. East Noble

In girls basketball. They lose a lot of players to soccer in winter. I stand corrected re. FL round ball. Def looks like a regional thing.

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It was surprising to me, as well, when we moved from IN to TX 16 years ago. Couldn't comprehend the low regard for basketball at first, but it is what it is. I would imagine it's the same in most of the deep south, with maybe Florida being an exception, regarding round ball. Seems like they appreciate it a little more over there (FL).

Carroll at Luers: Carroll by 2 TD's. Concordia at South Side: Cadets by 3-4 TD's. North Side at Snider: tough to call, Snider pulls out a 7 point (or less) win. Northrop at Homestead: Spartans by 3 scores. Wayne at Dwenger: Another difficult pick. Sticking with the c.y.o. by a TD (maybe 2 TD's).

The winter sports scene here isn't nearly what it is up there. From what I have seen there is a round ball contingent in the larger metro areas, and even in some of the big schools where I live (Waco area), but their popularity overall does not hold a candle to football and baseball, the #1 & #2 boys HS sports in TX. At my kids school, basketball was viewed by most as a tool for maintaining conditioning between football & baseball/track, which IIRC start practicing in Feb. Heck, there's not a school in this area that even offers wrestling! Also, if I'm not mistaken there is an overlap in seasons. My youngest graduated in 2018 so I'm starting to forget some of these details. My perspective comes from small/medium sized school experiences. @foxbat might be able to provide a better read on the large school winter sports scene, having lived in the Houston area IIRC.

That was my first observation, as well, regarding FW area teams or the lack thereof.

Spot on. I've thought of doing this myself. The only thing stopping me is how embarrassed I'll be when my buddies see a clean sheet after emptying the magazine.

Well written and thought out. But the thought of Mrs. Word Salad taking over in the oval office? No thanks, I'll put up with "the devil I know" for a few more years.

Exactly. This is why I have no issues with bussing illegals to DC/NY/etc. Now the situation is on their front doorstep as well. Let's see how they like it: apparently not so much.

Agreed. Mr. Mayor should come down here to Texas if he really wants something cry foul about. Part of the "It's all OK as long as not in my back yard" crowd. A dose of reality about this whole situation would change a lot of minds.

OK, thanks. You learn something every day.

What's a "thud" scrimmage? Not familiar with that term.

Apologies for the thread drift, but curiosity got the better of me. Found an article from Oct 2021, https://thedatajocks.com/best-states-for-high-school-football/ that used D1 scholarships per million residents as the measuring stick. They are: 1.MIssissippi 2. Kansas 3. D.C. 4. Georgia 5. Bama 6. Florida 7. Texas 8. California Bottom five from same article: 47. N. Dakota 48. Rhode Island 49. Montana 50. Maine 51. Vermont. Interesting read. Something different than what I usually look at for rankings (Maxpreps, Calprep, football forums😉). I would have bet money that Ohio's in that top eight. For me the big five have been: Cali, Texas, Florida, Ohio & Bama, in no particular order. But I digress.... Back to the topic at hand.

Neutral sites were one of the perks for my kids when in HS football. 2A here don't have an over abundance of top-level facilities, plenty of nice ones but most are nothing like the 4A/5A/6A. Kids always were up to play on a really nice field in a really nice stadium. I am firmly behind neutral sites for post season.

Excellent points. When I was in HS, we would get together June/July on Saturday's and play barnyard football (touch, not tackle). Let the linemen go out for passes now & then, change things up a bit. It was fun and we got used to playing in the heat. A fair amount of our players lived on farms and didn't have the time to go to camps/OTA's throughout the summer, but they could talk dad into letting them go for a few hours once a week, to maintain some fitness for 2-a-days. Lots of us also had jobs, and it's easier to schedule one day off than multiple. If I wanted to have/maintain a vehicle, I had to provide the funds myself - for the most part, and so did most of the kids in my class. But it was the 80's and we weren't a super strong football program back then, so there's that. I agree it's beginning to get out of control.

My frame of reference is mostly the mid-late 80's vs. the early 2000's for you. That could be the reason for our differing takes on SW. I graduated in 86 and IIRC they were a pretty easy win for us but that was almost 40 years ago. The wife graduated SW in 88, and I remember her telling me (I forget which year) they went several games into the season before they scored a TD. They had some good years after that, no argument there, but "overall" never seemed to me like a community that really caught that football "bug". Similar to Heritage, who I would say was/is not a football school either. Haven't followed it as close since moving out of state, so could be I was out of the loop at that point. We were gone in the 2000's and looks to be the time frame you're working with, so yeah they could have had some good years then that I wasn't aware of. I remember AC was always a tough opponent back then. My freshman year, AC's O-line was significantly smaller than our D-line & backers. We thought "we got this no problem". Those little guys dove at our front 8 all game, cut their legs out from underneath. Man it was ugly! I think we lost by a few scores. Those AC running backs tor us up. We had not practiced against that before. Regardless of how we see it, hope some of these other ACAC teams can find something and make that conference legit again.