XStar

Out of everyone, Eastside was the team I was most confident could hang with Luers (assuming they returned most of their key players from last season). They had beaten them 2 years ago and hung with them for 4 quarters last year. It could be just me, but I thought the regional game would've been easier for Luers, particularly if it had been Eastbrook. Eastbrook has shown time and again over the years they are terrible defending the pass and Adamson has shown an unwillingness to change his approach. I think Luers would've passed up and down the field on Eastbrook all game long. Fortunately for Eastbrook, I think they have a much better chance against Eastside who plays a style easy for Eastbrook to defend. In fact, I think Eastbrook is a big favorite in that matchup because Eastside won't be able to maintain the level of play they showed last week.

Players may want to play full quarters too but if the decision has been made that the game should be altered due to a lack of competitiveness then we've already determined that this is more important than what they want.

I didn't mean you were grilling me. It was Grover that was asking me what the reasons were as if I had withheld an offer from him. Hate to break it to everyone, but I'm not a P5 coach.

I'm not trying to make it an argument over opinion. All I'm saying is that there are reasons why he didn't have the P5 offers. I'm not saying it was right or wrong. I'm not saying I know what the reasons were. I'm just saying that the offers obviously weren't there. If he wants to argue that they should have been, fine. But his argument isn't with me so no need to try to grill me on what the reasons were. I don't know and actually don't even care. If P5 coaches thought he could've helped them win more games than others, he'd have got offers. Whether they are right or wrong, it's clear by their actions what they thought.

I probably didn't express what I meant very well. I didn't mean it was the most dominant performance I've seen, just that it impressed me most compared to my expectations. I actually gave Eastside a shot to win the game, but I did not expect them to hold Luers to 3 points into the fourth quarter. Wouldn't have thought that was possible short of having to play in a monsoon given Luers dynamic passing game. Webo was defending 2A state champs with a Mr. Football runner-up at QB. They won every tournament game by 3 TD's or more I think which is certainly dominant. It just wasn't as surprising to me which maybe is a better word I should've used rather than impressive.

I don't like it for regular season games so I for sure don't want it late in the playoffs as well. I'd just as soon do it like baseball and the ten-run rule. If the game is out of hand, just end it rather than institute a running clock. When a team scores to go up 42 or more, end the game the next time they gain possession.

I guess I'm not seeing the opportunities for Brohm that others see him getting, or maybe hope he gets. At this point, he's getting paid something like 4.4 million a year at Purdue which is like 25th in the country and 8th or so in the Big Ten. He parlayed success in his first two seasons to big raises but struggled the next two seasons. Now I think he's a good coach, but is another P5 program going to throw 5 million plus at him based on his track record at Purdue so far? I wouldn't think so at this point. As for him developing QB's, I'd say he's yet to finish a season at Purdue with the same QB he started with. I like Brohm and I think he's a good fit at Purdue. He makes sense here and I think that's why I was ok with overpaying to keep him 3 years ago. In the 3 years since he got his last bump, his pay has slowly moved back down into a reasonable range. 13 of the 14 Big Ten coaches make at least 4 million a year now so his salary fits into that range. I have a hard time seeing that another P5 program that is capable of offering him 5 million or more a year would willing to target him at that price at this point. And, even if one did, Purdue may be willing to match up to a certain point. The NFL is a different discussion. I don't know if he would prefer that to a college job or not. In some ways I think he might. However, not all NFL coaches are paid as much as Brohm makes at Purdue. So how lucrative of an offer does an NFL team make to someone with his track record? You never know because it only takes one GM with a high opinion of him to throw a huge offer out there, but it would seem to be a stretch right now. One last thing to consider. Look at Purdue's schedule next season. It sets up pretty well for them and he is scheduled to return much of his talent. He probably loses Bell and Karlaftis to the NFL but I'm betting AOC is back at QB along with many other starters. He's finally got a good defensive staff in place and is recruiting some depth that he lacked when he arrived at Purdue. He has Brady Allen and Joe Strickland line up for this upcoming recruiting class and I think he's poised to leapfrog back in front of IU in the recruiting pecking order in the state. I think he's finally getting his program up and running. Even if he is looking to move along to another destination at some point, he might be in a much better position in another year than he is now.

I'm a little surprised that these two made it this far. More Northridge than Mississinewa though. Northridge was very unimpressive during the regular season. Their only wins were against really bad teams. However, in sectionals they avenged a loss to Northwood (lost by 34 regular season, won by 21 postseason), won convincingly over a .500 Columbia City team, and edged out a win against undefeated Leo in overtime. I don't follow the program closely so I'm not sure what to attribute that level of play to and why it contrasts from their regular season performance so greatly. Lack of explanation, you have to assume that's the team that's going to show up Friday night. Mississinewa played their best opponents in their first 2 games and lost to both. Then they tore through the weak portion of the schedule like a hot knife through butter. Wasn't sure how they'd look playing teams their own size again in sectional but they looked good, winning those games soundly. That said, even the sectional opposition was somewhat weak. I think this game is close with both teams at full strength. However, I think we can assume that Mississinewa won't be full strength for this one which means it could be an uphill battle for them depending on who all is missing. I expect a reasonably competitive game and maybe give an edge to Nortridge due to their recent play and Mississinewa coming in at less than full strength.

Again, the Eastbrook way. I think in 2018 when they lost the state championship game they were all up in arms on here and on their parent Facebook page accusing Western Boone of cheering for one of their players being injured. I mean, they were such sore losers that they convinced themselves that the opposition got up and made a loud roar for an injury. In reality, the video board at Lucas Oil Stadium flashed a picture of Western Boone's well-liked, retired coach Jeff Pearson on the big board during the break in play and the Western Boone fans gave a brief roar for the 8-10 seconds or so he was shown. I have zero doubt that Tipton fans were not heckling injured players. In all my years of watching high school football, I have not ever seen a situation where fans were doing that as a whole. On rare occasions, you may hear a one-off fan say something and sometimes that guy is shouted down by his peers. Most likely, this accusation is completely made up to deflect from discussing their own behavior or the Eastbrook fan is confused about what someone was actually saying.

They heard vandalism was acceptable behavior for some football players in Grant County after games.

So if you're punishing both teams, how does removing Wayne from the tournament serve as punishment to them? I have talked to a player that was on the field for the game and, not surprisingly, there was much leading up to this and both sides carry blame and deserve punishment. I'm not punishing the whole MIssissinewa team for the actions of a few players though. Not to mention it screws up the tournament by giving a team a bye in the regional round (I'm sure Northridge would rather play than not as well) so you're really punishing other teams as well. Punishment is warranted, and those that are guilty should absolutely be dealt with and made an example of. I don't think removing the whole team from the tournament is warranted here though. The vast majority of their team stayed on the other side of the field.

Exactly how do you investigate that sort of thing?

You're correct. I don't know much about them. I just see it happen time after time to all sorts of teams in many different sports for years on end. If Eastside is the exception to that, so be it. We'll see.

No. Accusations are meaningless. People will accuse others of anything to help justify their own wrong actions. It needs to be officiated. If an official hears a slur, should be a flag, a penalty in the game, and noted for review. Then a set of rules should be established for an accumulation of these types of penalties. I don't know if you group it with other unsportsmanlike conduct penalties or you create a whole new category for it but that can all be decided upon. There just needs to be some sort of structure and it needs to go beyond an opponent saying the other team said this or that.

I hope Mississinewa's coach takes the appropriate measures to address the issues on his team, regardless of what circumstances led to them. Player discipline has been lacking in the CIC this season.

They never do when it goes their way. It's only when they get slapped around that the blame has to go on the officials or the other team has no class or something.

The performance of Eastside last night was as impressed as I've been with a 2A team in the tournament since 1998. They dominated that game until the last few minutes when Luers were in desperation mode and got a little bit going. I picked Eastside as my 2A sleeper (see link below) and last night showed why. https://gridirondigest.net/topic/4896-tournament-upsetsdarkhorses/?tab=comments#elControls_116970_menu That said, I think that game was their Super Bowl. They have been targeting that game for the past year. Now they've won it. I don't think they can keep that level of focus, intensity, and performance next week. They'll have people telling them how great they are this upcoming week and it will go to their head and they'll lose that chip on their shoulder. I think Eastbrook wins by 2 or 3 touchdowns as a result and sets up a rematch of the 2019 semistate game with Andrean.

You said "very well could have been".

LOL

I don't know. Ask a P5 coach.

It will be LONG gone by then anyway.

Really haven't decided what I'm doing yet. It's possible I could end up there. Why? You going to buy me a beer afterwards?

I was on the field after the 2018 and 2019 semi-state games. Nobody ever comes and says hi. Very rude.

Sometimes the player gets overlooked coming out of high school for whatever reasons then when they show what they can do at a mid-major level, they become a pretty sought-after recruit as a transfer. Whatever their perceived limitations might have been have either been overcome or proven to not be as important as they were once thought to be. Either way, if Steele has good success at Ball State, there will probably be opportunities for him to step up into a bigger program if he should desire to.

The same thing that prevented most other P5 programs from offering I guess.