crimsonace1

I believe Rushville is the only one in our area. Their stadium was on a very tiny patch of ground and had an old cinder track. So when they expanded it, they built a new track & soccer facility by their junior high and the football bleachers are right on top of the field. It's a great atmosphere.

Precisely. Even without Sagarins (or MaxPreps ratings in sports where there are no Sagarins), you can seed pretty easily using record, head-to-head meetings, common opponents. Wrestling coaches do it every year.

Remember, football is not the only determining factor in conference affiliation. It's the most important sport, but it's not the only one. If Eugene White was still in charge of IPS, he'd be pushing for Tech to be taken into the MIC (he was trying to turn Tech into an athletic factory and gain MIC admission when he was super). Conference Indiana would likely be a better competitive fit even though the travel (outside of Southport) would only be slightly better than the NCC. Major problem with CI is that IPS isn't exactly flush with cash and you're going to Terre Haute every year, Bloomington every year and Columbus every other year. The Mid-State has a lot of history and tradition behind it and fits neatly into that Johnson-Morgan (and into the small corner of Marion & Hendricks counties to get DC & Plainfield) area. You have a lot of longtime rivals (Franklin-Whiteland-Greenwood, Mooresville-Plainfield, Mooresville-Martinsville). DC & PM feel like outliers who would be better fits in Conference Indiana and the league is getting too big for Greenwood. New Pal is happy in the HHC. Yes, it's a bit of a top-heavy football conference right now, but it's a very competitive league in other sports, is largely geographically compact, et al. However, Mt. Vernon is growing fast and will likely top 2K within the decade. New Pal is also growing quickly and probably will be 1,600+ before long. Most of the other schools in the league have stagnant or declining enrollments, though, and there might be some movement ... problem is, unless the eastern NCC schools (Richmond, Anderson, Muncie Central especially) finally say "enough" and leave the NCC, there really aren't any landing spots for the HHC schools. Shelbyville might fit in the EIAC (and I wouldn't be surprised to see them jump if given the opportunity) but otherwise, most of the conferences in the area are 1A/2A leagues and the HHC's schools are big 3As & 4As.

Westfield is not even close to built out and Carmel is growing north. It's likely their growth isn't going to stop. One thing about Whitestown - a big chunk of it is actually in Lebanon's district. They may see a lot of growth as Whitestown grows. Basically, where I-65 meets (what used to be) SR 334, anything west of that line is Lebanon, and then the line significantly jogs east not far north of there.

IHSAAtv.org was PPV-only throughout the tournament, and it's now PPV (and exclusive) for the semistate round in both football and basketball (and they redid the basketball tournament to take a round away from the regional and move it to the semistate, thus tripling the number of semistate games and PPV-exclusive games) The part you don't know - the rights fee to do a video webcast is $300/game, paid by the broadcaster (it's more - often double - for a linear TV broadcast, and it's $72 for a radio/Internet audio broadcast ... the audio fee is up from $50 three years ago). The broadcaster is required to air the game without paywall for the sectional and regional. So the IHSAA gets its money, but it comes directly from the broadcasters. As long as the IHSAA believes it's making more money off that than it can off, say, a 50/50 split of PPV revenues, then they'll continue to charge the rights fees and require the games be freely aired. But I expect that to change in the near future - the 2021 basketball tournament was PPV-only (but that year was also limited capacity in many gyms and the PPV was seen as a way to recoup $$ and production costs for the broadcasters).

Looks really nice. Too bad they weren't really able to stay in the Big 8 (or the Big 8 wasn't really able to stay together) ... they were a perfect fit in the league despite being on the other side of the Wabash River.

They weren't bumped via the Success Factor. SF points only apply to schools that have already been bumped, not to schools who were in a class on enrollment. Merrillville could've won two straight 6A state titles and dropped to 5A if its enrollment dipped below the line. But Cathedral wins two sectionals or one regional, it'll stay in 6A.

There was a day when few of the high majors bothered with Indiana - Rex Grossman basically recruited himself to Florida because Steve Spurrier's initial response to him was "we don't recruit Indiana." So, as a result, the top kids went to IU and Purdue (or Notre Dame got the guys they wanted, but they've always recruited nationally), so you'd see guys like Rod Woodson stay in-state. Bill Mallory's best teams at IU were built on recruiting in-state kids + getting guys from less-heavily-recruited areas (they had a lot of guys from upstate New York & Canada). Nowadays, with national recruiting and Ohio State/Michigan jumping in and recruiting the state much more heavily, it's much more difficult for IU & Purdue to recruit the state and bring in those blue-chip players who might have flown under the radar (getting Omar Cooper was a really good recruit for IU, and his HS teammate Donaven McCulley in the previous class). I know there were some guys Tom Allen *really* prioritized this cycle who went out of state. Tom Allen has a really, really good relationship with the state's high school coaches, but he also works his connections in Florida very well and has had a really good pipeline coming from Tampa. IU signed its best-ever class this offseason, even without a lot of Indiana kids. I don't follow Purdue much, but it seems most of their kids are out-of-state, as well, unless you have a kid like Karlaftis who grows up in Lafayette and Purdue is his first choice. That said, it's *really* difficult to sign guys when you just went 2-10. However, recruiting is cyclical - two years ago, IU had been getting pretty much all of the top in-state kids except some of the Lafayette-area ones. Purdue has done a bit better in-state - Strickland, Allen, et al - in this cycle, but the pendulum will likely swing again. Also appears IU is prioritizing the transfer portal - they had a huge portal class this offseason - which may affect HS recruiting a bit more as there are fewer scholarships available for incoming freshmen if you're bringing in 10-12 portal guys a year.

IMO, it's less that NBC has lost interest and more that it's using its valuable properties to try to push subscribers to get cable so they'll have to watch NBCSN (or now, USA Network) and now, they're trying to push Peacock subs. Last week's IndyCar race was also Peacock-only for the same reason - trying to push subscribers by forcing the diehards to buy an extra service. They're usually lower-rated events (like an IndyCar street race in Toronto or ND's games against MAC schools).

Did they move with Jayson West?

There is a significant number of ex-Warren (and Franklin) Township families at New Pal & Mt. Vernon but the volume hasn't quite been as large as Lawrence-> HSE, North Central-> Carmel, BD->Avon and Pike->Brownsburg/Zionsville.

A thread for the 2022 broadcasts. If your school/team airs games, post 'em here so those of us who are home on Friday night (or in the car) can find them. I'll start: New Palestine: All games audio on NewPalRadio.com. Coverage begins one hour prior to kickoff. Home games video ($) on IHSAAtv.org/NewPalestine

The reality is, many of those top players from North Central 30-40 years ago would likely be at Carmel or Cathedral/Chatard today. North Central got hit *hard* by out-migration (primarily to Carmel) much earlier than the other township schools did. The Lawrence schools probably were next (primarily to HSE, but Mt. Vernon is now getting a lot of ex-Lawrence kids), and then Pike/BD (to Zionsville/Brownsburg/Avon).

Marian has advanced to the semistate three straight years, only to run into Chatard, Chatard and a generational Brebeuf squad ... and lost the last two by a total of six points ... not only three straight semistates, but four of the last five and five of the last seven. A handful of really close losses in there. Feels like Marian in the semistate is the equivalent of Hobart in the State Finals in the 1970s/80s before they finally got over the hump. Bad news for them is Chatard is looped into the north semistate again.

Brebeuf was one of the most impressive teams I saw last year. Yes, Strickland is gone, but DL/LB were as good as any group I saw outside of Cathedral and they return three of their top five tacklers. Their QB, Buckman, is also back and they throw it all over the place (although their WR corps almost all graduated). Brebeuf and Roncalli should be a really good matchup. 4A south should be loaded. Roncalli lost a ton, as well, but always has talent waiting in the wings. East Central is always a contender. Mt. Vernon lost a lot to the diploma - especially Slunaker & La Belle - but still has a couple pretty good playmakers, especially Burhenn. They & New Pal will meet in Week 4 and will likely be the top two contenders in their sectional. New Pal is back in 4A for the first time since winning it in 2014 and has a really talented roster with multiple Div. I prospects/commits on both sides of the ball. Every weekend, especially from the sectional final weekend on, should be a meat-grinder just to get to Lucas Oil.

Cathedral was likely the main target of the Success Factor and will be used as proof its implementation has been successful (there are a few others - Muncie Burris volleyball & Heritage Christian girls hoops, but they've regressed to the mean since they lost their coaches with the, um, "good club sports connections"). While the LCC/Luers/Chatard dominance of their respective classes had a lot to do with it, Cathedral was a top-5 program bulldozing its way through 4A every year. Every time they've tweaked the SF, they've done it to prevent Cathedral from dropping back to 4A.

With the SF only needing two points to stay up once you've been bumped, all Memorial needs to do is win two sectionals or a regional in the two-year cycle, which they've been pretty successful at doing. Brebeuf is 4A by enrollment. I don't think they've ever been 4A in football until now, but it's not a success factor bump. Chatard has only bumped up to 4A twice. In three years, they've lost to Roncalli in the sectional twice. They won the sectional their first year in 4A, but then lost to New Pal in the regional in the Dragons' first year (IMO, that game might be the biggest win in NP's history, because they finally broke through the regional after years of trying. That win completely changed the mindset and culture in the New Pal community).

To further the initial point, the IHSAA does not rule on transfers with an eye toward "competitive balance." They're not going, "you know, if this kid transfers, it's going to really hurt this school's team that's struggling and make this other team much better and we can't have that." They're going to rule based on the factors of each case. The relative strength of the programs and what's "best for Indiana high school football" is not among the criteria. Basically, the transfer rules are pretty simple. If the two ADs/principals sign off on it, it's good. If someone doesn't sign off on it, the questions are - was the transfer was for athletic reasons, it's likely going to be reviewed and limited eligibility granted. Generally, the "athletic reasons" involve going to a school where you have a past link (translation: if you're transferring to be with your former AAU basketball or travel baseball coach) and/or your move did not involve a change of address, then some red flags get raised. Sometimes, the move was without a change of address and *appeared* to be an athletic move even though it was for other reasons (the Jayden Brewer case when he transferred from Avon to Ben Davis - the latter being the school district he lived in, for family reasons - being the most obvious, but we broadcast Hamilton Heights games a few years ago where they had a WR - who ended up going to Oregon - transfer from Noblesville, we were told because of the FFA program, who had limited eligibility for one year and couldn't play until the sectional). There was another case where a kid transferred from a p/p to his local public school. Went to the Case Review Panel and they upheld the IHSAA's limited eligibility ruling as the dad basically spent the entire hearing talking about how bad the previous school's coach was. It couldn't have been a more blatantly obvious athletic transfer.

Pot, kettle.

This is not the NFL. There is no salary cap or draft to ensure competitive balance. The IHSAA's job is not to ensure "competitive balance," but to administer tournaments and create rules for fair competition. The reality is, in high school sports, some communities/schools are going to have better teams than others. There has never been competitive balance, and never will be, in community/education-based athletics.

That changed during the Daniels administration. When the property tax caps were made a part of the Constitution, the school funding formula changed to a money-follows-the-child system (partially funded by an increase in sales taxes). Part of that deal was that schools could not charge tuition for transfers (but the receiving school had discretion to allow or deny transfers). That has since been modified, because some schools were only accepting transfers with good academic or attendance records, and now the state requires a school that accepts transfers to accept everyone who applies, everyone who applies until capacity is reached, or to hold a lottery if there are more applicants than spots. The state provides the enrollment-based financial support. So, if a student transfers from Community A to Community B, the money attached to that student goes to School B, not the school where he resides. Local property taxes pay for buses and capital improvements, but the general fund (salaries, the electric bill, operating costs of running the school) have to come entirely from the money coming from the state, which comes on the per-student basis.

New Pal's AD is very ethical and, to my knowledge, has never blocked a transfer out even though there have been some transfers out - in non-football sports - that he easily could have blocked because the transfer was very obviously athletically-motivated and didn't include a change of residence. Some other schools in the area, as CaptainHook noted, will drag the process out as long as possible and then refuse to sign off on it at the last minute.

Really, there's open enrollment statewide. The key is, the school where you're wanting to *transfer to* needs to accept out-of-district transfer applications. Most schools do, some don't (usually, the ones that don't are in high-demand districts where the locals are concerned about keeping the property values up or districts where the schools are largely at capacity and can't really afford to take on more students). At New Pal, our previous superintendent was a hard "no" on out-of-district students for years, until a study committee (largely spearheaded by yours truly) pointed out the significant financial benefits and few costs. The biggest fear was that kids transferring from Marion County would take spots from longtime local families on athletic teams, et al. What has turned out is there's a significant self-selection bias - the people who are transferring in are doing so because they *want* to be here, and many intend to move to the community (a significant number do).

I agree but parents and kids are going to believe what they're going to believe. My days as a girls basketball coach were spent having "conversations" with parents whose 9-year-olds were playing an indoor travel softball game at 2 a.m. the night before in February because "that's when the games are." When I ask why they subject themselves to that and isn't that a bit of overkill, the response is "she has to or she'll get left behind." I don't think a lot of coaches say that, but the parents think it. Parents - especially the ones who micromanage their kids' careers - are *terrified* of getting "left behind" and their kids "losing their spot." (the micromanaging-type parents are also the least likely to send their kids to their districted school unless it has a powerhouse, state championship-level program in their preferred sport). They had Derrick Mayes and Eric Allen as WR/CBs in 1990-91 but could never get past Ben Davis.

Not sure if that's the case - schools of 3000+ kids tend to specialize just because if you don't, the kid who plays year-round might take your spot - but Darius Latham & Daniel Jones were both multi-year starters in both sports. They may have been the exception rather than the rule. David Bell (WC), Dawand Jones (BD) & a handful of others have been standouts in both sports in 6A.