Old Man High Pants

New "Big School" Conference: East Central: 1,290 (+44) Connersville: 981 (-47) Franklin County: 756 (-8) Lawrenceburg: 718 (+40) New "Small School" Conference: Greensburg: 716 (-18) Batesville: 711 (+11) South Dearborn: 689 (-137) Rushville: 660 (-35) How long before South Dearborn and Batesville decide they don't want to play East Central anymore either? South Dearborn drop was expected but still surprising, at one point they were one of the three largest schools in the conference. Do we see this as a continuing trend?

So is the IHSAA going to repost the numbers by the end of March now or . . . .

Outside of Cathedral what other teams are moving up and moving down?

Cambridge City Lincoln job is open. https://www.applitrack.com/wayne/onlineapp/default.aspx?Category=Athletics%2fActivities

Lack of parent, administration & community support.

It's not. Travel rule is one of the dumbest things the IHSAA has ever put in place.

I don't disagree with you but the IHSAA's current "promotion" factor is highly flawed, not sure I'd want them working on "regulation" as well.

They did that when Coach Beuning was there and still didn't have much success. He has gone on to win a state championship and had multiple deep playoff runs since then so it wasn't a lack of head coaching while he was there, maybe a lack of assistant help. Jennings County is definitely different since he was there. They have made some major upgrades. What they really need is somebody who is going to be there for the long haul. I don't think they need to hire a guy who is wanting to have a few successful seasons and turn it into another job.

Why not just abolish the Success Factor all together? I think the biggest class that has issues of the same teams always winning is 6A and there's no 7A to send Center Grove to. Let's be honest the Success Factor was put in place to either "keep in check" or "punish" Catholic school dominance in the early 2010s depending on your viewpoint. For those who wanted Catholic schools to play up it didn't work. Those teams are still making it to state and winning. And there's so many problems with it. As Jets described one good class hurt Southridge. Their team two seasons ago would have possibly won 2A, or at minimum had a great chance. Then you have teams like Western Boone who won their first two state championships in the correct (lucky) years. It's like the NCAA putting scholarship limits on teams for recruiting scandals that happened with the last coach or group of players. A better way for the IHSAA to classify would be to look at overall male population for boys sports and percentage of male population in schools then classify based off that. But that's a common sense approach which probably means it won't happen.

That's what I figured. Family moves are never easy, especially cross country.

Any idea what happened? Family decision perhaps?

Anyone who knows a little bit about Coach Rodenberg's history would know this is a great move for him for all the reasons you just listed. Indian Hills is a great school to coach at, I think it will be a great fit for him and the school.

I believe the rules state that it's the four largest in one and the four smallest in the other. They started it 4A/3A because that's how it was at the time. Next season only East Central and Connersville will be 4A. The interesting part will be to see if Greensburg goes to the large conference, which by the numbers posted on another thread they're at the 4th largest enrollment, how that will work out. Both teams came to a mutual agreement to not play and it's honestly better for both teams. In my opinion should get rid of divisions and just say if a team decides they don't want to play another then that's it. Make it a lot easier.

This goes back to the Big School / Small School. To me a conference should be a conference. The only reason I can see for splitting up into divisions would be to have a North/South or East/West divide to cut down on travel time and open up more opportunities for out of conference games. Lets just call it what it is. This entire format was created so that schools could avoid playing East Central. Ironically Lawrenceburg was the one in the driver seat for this when it was initiated, which is why they didn't play for four years. There's been a lot of change in the football program, athletic department and frankly the town since this thing started rolling over a decade ago. To the original question though of who should be in or out. Rushville and Connersville don't beat anyone but each other. Jennings County & Madison would probably be the same. I think the EIAC was better when teams couldn't avoid East Central, there was a standard to measure up to.

I personally hate the Big School / Small School format. To me it makes the small school conference champion look like a runner up. But that's just me. Sounds like a great fit to me. That conference is much more on Madison's level when it comes to football. Have no idea in other sports.

They've played them in JV in the past. Colerain is a tough team to schedule. They play in a conference with more teams than regular season games. Their 2-3 out of conference games they have per year are always against GCL teams. East Central does a good job of scheduling Ohio schools in their out of conference. Currently play Harrison and Moeller. In the past have played LaSalle, Edgewood, and Columbus De Sales.

If a team wants to play them out of conference that's one thing. Being forced to play a team year after year knowing you're going to win isn't going to do much for your program. Take East Central out of the equation, adding Jennings County and Madison now gives a team like Lawrenceburg two more games that won't do anything for them in the playoffs. I think the Mid Southern would be a good fit for them. They're a small 4A school and may be 3A here soon which would fit well with that conference. I couldn't agree more. I've always thought joining an Ohio Conference would be great for East Central. They have played Edgewood before as well. I think it would be great for the program but like I said I don't really see that happening. Though the Southwest Conference has been having some potential shake ups talked about lately so who knows?

Both were talked about a few years back, not sure how serious those talks were. Lately Madison has come into the discussion among the ADs again. And Milan! Which to me would be even dumber than bringing in Connersville and Rushville.

That's possible. Lawrenceburg has distanced themselves as of the last few years but they also had an extremely talented group that came through and will be graduating. Not to say they still won't be successful but it will be interesting to see how they do this coming season. I wouldn't expect them to have a losing season, but definitely some closer games. While I think East Central would be better suited as an independent I don't think they ever will be. I've always gotten the feeling that East Central likes their position and won't do too much to compromise that.

I would not. It's my opinion that before the addition of Rushville and Connersville the EIAC was a very solid football conference. There were teams that were able to compete with and beat East Central and it gave teams four out of conference games which made seasons a little less "here we go again". If Rushville and Connersville were to leave the addition of Madison and Jennings County would just be trading two long drives north to know you're going to mercy rule a team to two long drives south to know you're going to mercy rule a team. I'd like to see the EIAC go back to six teams for the time being.

Rushville and Connersville don't fit and never have. Was a dumb decision to bring them in. East Central would benefit from being independent but I don't ever see that happening.

The late 80s early 90s were a completely different time for Connersville, the town still had jobs and there wasn't a massive drug issue. And even with that Radtke only had one or two winning seasons. Coaches like him and Mike Spencer had success everywhere they were except Connersville.

Such an official list lmao. The only competitive sport there is boys basketball, and the only one they care about. You might as well drop every sport in that case. They don't spend any money on football right now, big reason they aren't competitive. No, they like having a week off.

I think this has been in the making for a while. From those I've talked to the school never really wanted to commit to actually building a football program. The bulk of their team were Seniors last year so it wouldn't be surprising if this were the case.

Source? Heard this was a possibility but hadn't heard anything official come out yet.