crimsonace1

Very few small township schools had football. They didn't have the numbers for it.

LC is currently undergoing a significant renovation/expansion, so Lawrence Township is certainly expecting the school's enrollment to grow, although the township is already pretty built out. There really aren't any other sandboxes for them to play in - go back to Conference Indiana (which would add significant travel times). Is open enrollment hurting? Who knows.As of the latest DOE report, Lawrence Township has 1,348 students who live in the district and go to another public school (which is the second-highest among Marion County townships to Warren). Assuming a sizable number of those end up at Mt. Vernon, that would likely affect LC a bit more. But Lawrence Township also has 1,293 students coming in from other districts (which is second in the state to Penn - once you take out the two school districts that run large online charter schools). You also have the issue of Lawrence Township has three large private schools in or near its district - Cathedral, Chatard and Heritage Christian, all of which provide nearby options. Cathedral and Chatard are not too far down the road from LC. Heritage is a little closer to LN.

They've consolidated because both communities are rapidly losing population and could no longer financially sustain multiple high schools. One could argue the consolidation's net benefit on athletics was limited as a number of Anderson Highland and Muncie South families transferred to other districts (Pendleton Heights ended up with a not insignificant number of Highland kids) rather than go to/play for what had been for decades a fierce rival.

None. They usually come out around now. They were announced Feb. 28 two years ago and in mid-February in 2017.

Of note, ALL of Illinois' classes (except football) are asymmetrical. Classes 4A and 3A have 22.2% of schools, the remainder are split equally among 2A and 1A. (Football in Illinois - the tournament fields and classes are determined *after* the season once the qualifiers are announced).

One thing, too, is basketball drives the bus at a lot of rural one-county schools. Connersville may not have much of a football tradition, but has traditionally had a very good basketball program that punches above its weight. Blackford is going through the Luke Brown experience. Jay County has long had a solid basketball program. Benton Central (which has the largest school district in the state geographically) was a girls hoops powerhouse when Jan Conner was there and remains a pretty solid program. Same with Huntington North under Fred Fields. Jennings County, Bedford North Lawrence (which encompasses about 80% of Lawrence County's population), et al - good basketball traditions. Franklin County (which actually doesn't encompass the entire county - a few townships go to Batesville) had a tremendous football program when Alex Smith was there and in the years after, but they've dealt with a population decline as have a lot of rural counties. Basketball is a *big* part of the culture in a lot of rural communities and that seems to be the focus of the youth/community development programs. In the communities mentioned above - Connersville, BNL, Benton Central, Blackford all have fairly large gyms. The community support is very good at a lot of those schools for *basketball*. It's just hard to drum it up for football for whatever reason.

Even with that, the vast, vast, vast majority of people attend the school district where they live.

Of note, New Palestine has about 500-800 homes either under construction or approved, with a few more neighborhoods in the approval process. It needs about 400 more students in the high school to get to 5A, but I expect it'll get there in the next decade.

As long as the status quo remains, Cathedral will likely be bouncing between 5A and 6A depending on which part of the success factor cycle it's in. All of that undeveloped and rapidly-developing land near Hamilton Town Center feels like Noblesville, but is in the HSE district. HSE has shown a willingness to cap its high schools at a certain enrollment and build new when they grow large. It's likely Carmel won't ever split the high school no matter how big it gets. Gotta keep the swimming title streak alive.

Whiteland will be 6A sooner rather than later. Two relatively-new exits off I-65 have been built in the Clark Township half of their school district and it's growing fast. Plainfield is also in a fast-growing area although it will need some time to get to 6A. I'd expect to see it get there in 6-10 years. Wouldn't be shocked to see Franklin eventually join them but it will take more time. Greenfield-Central has been 5A but likely won't get to 6A as their enrollment has been leveling off and declining for some time. Another to look for is Mt. Vernon, which is one of the fastest-growing areas in the state. They will be 5A either this cycle or next, and likely won't be long before they jump to 6A. Cathedral and New Pal are actually 4A schools by enrollment. While New Palestine is growing fast, it will probably be a decade or so before it hits 6A enrollment.

You can add Yorktown in ... Tod was an assistant coach there in-between his stints at Highland and Delta. And his son attended Pendleton Heights as a freshman, so you could add them in, too.

Virtual students are still students at your school. They still count in terms of enrollment and receive funding.

This was in response to my comment that most schools in IN didn't have football until the 1960s. I need to dig up hard data and can look it up in the old IHSAA handbooks that are now freely available, but prior to the consolidation wave of the 1960s/70s, it was rare to see a football team outside of a county seat or larger community. Many of the county schools - remember, there were more than 700 schools in Indiana in the 1950s - simply did not have enough people to field a football team. I do have a list of enrollments from 1954, and about half the schools have fewer than 100 students in grades 9-12, which would mean fewer than 50 boys. A large number had two boys teams - cross country in the fall and basketball in the spring. A few of the larger "small" schools might also have a baseball team (and it wasn't uncommon for baseball season to be in the fall). It wasn't until many of those county schools began consolidating that they began to offer a full menu of sports. For example, the IHSAA didn't begin sponsoring a baseball tournament until 1967. There weren't enough schools playing to justify one prior to that.

Ohio has twice the population of Indiana and three major cities (Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati) and a number of good-sized smaller cities like Toledo, Akron, Dayton and Youngstown. In the Midwest, football tends to thrive in large cities in larger industrial cities as they had the critical mass of people to have teams and programs. Most schools in Indiana didn't have football until the late 1960s and 1970s after consolidations. Michigan only has one major city (Detroit), but a number of smaller cities like Grand Rapids, Flint, Ann Arbor, Saginaw, Kalamazoo, Lansing ...

Of all the ridiculous hot takes that have been spewed on this forum (and has, honestly, driven more people away than he has drawn in with his "content generation"), the contraction one is by far the dumbest. Most teams aren't going to win state championships, but they do give kids opportunities. And one of the great things about football is there's a spot for virtually everyone and it brings together people from many different backgrounds in pursuit of one common purpose.

The reason 6A is 32 teams is because that's the number needed to have a tournament without byes. Same with 5A. And the way the numbers work, there will always be around 310-325 schools playing football in the state, which provides pretty good numbers for two 32-team tournaments and four 64-team ones. There are always going to be schools in the bottom end of the largest class - no matter how big/small you make it - that feel slighted and will not have the resources of the megaschools. The IHSAA already rejected a proposal to reduce Class 4A to 64 schools in the other sports (baseball, basketball, softball, volleyball) - and really, went out of its way to kill it by amending a good proposal and adding in the awful idea to play the four-team 4A basketball sectionals in one day. The IHSAA's mission is to support schools, provide and adjudicate eligibility rules and to sponsor championships. While the class system and success factor provide a sense of "competitive balance," there will always be some haves and have-nots in any system. Splitting the old 5A into two 32-team classes was a response. No matter what the system or how many schools are there, Ben Davis, Center Grove, Carmel and Warren Central are likely going to dominate whatever the class is. No matter what the makeup is of the big class - 16, 24, 32 or 64 schools, those four are likely going to pile up the titles.

The classifications are based on *this* year's enrollment, not necessarily next year's projected enrollment. The same article you're referencing stated Clark & Hammond will be merged, and Gavit/Morton are being merged, so I combined their enrollment numbers (Morton at 2,063 and Hammond at 1,596 ... but the projections are actually *more* students than currently attend the schools). It will be interesting to see how the IHSAA handles this. Usually, what it will do is add together the enrollments of the schools being consolidated.

Jason Simmons is a very good football coach and is highly respected in Central Indiana. They continued to get better week after week this year, played in a semistate and was just outclassed by the best team in the state (which basically blew everyone out).

At first glance, and again, nothing is official until the IHSAA releases it ... No surprise that Zionsville is moving to 6A, but i am a bit surprised Jeffersonville's enrollment has jumped enough to move it up. If this holds, it looks like (once again) there will be some crazy sectional travel in northern Indiana. And Carmel will likely be back in the northern half of the bracket. Somewhat surprised by Merrillville possibly moving down. They are a state contender in 5A. When all is said and done, I would expect Evansville North to be in 5A - their DOE school enrollments tend to be less than the IHSAA enrollments, which would send Huntington North to 4A. This will probably be Whiteland's last cycle in 5A before moving up to 6A next year. The Terre Haute schools dropping to 4A is a bit surprising. Both were solidly middle-5A programs a few years ago. TH doesn't seem to be bleeding population, but schools like Mt. Vernon, Greenfield-Central, Pendleton Heights and Northridge will probably continue to grow and push into 5A, eventually bumping FW North and BNL (as well as the TH schools) more permanently into 4A, as has already happened with former 5A teams Richmond, Marion & Muncie Central. Not a huge surprise there's lots of movement between 2A and 3A, as there are a ton of schools between 475-525 enrollment and one large or one small class can cause lots of movement.

In other sports, yes (a change made due to a school with a very good softball program being upset about New Palestine getting bumped down by a success factor school in softball and then winning a 3A state title the first year of the cycle ... and then petitioning the IHSAA for a rule change). But in football, where the number of schools in each class has to be 32 or 64, a school moving up *does* bump down another school. Again, there will be some movement, but this at least gives an idea of what schools are on the borderline.

Dugger is tourney eligible in 2022, the second year of the cycle.

It's Madison. Google auto-filled Madison-Grant.

Looks like it.

Here's what I was able to pull. Note: These are unofficial and reflect 4-grade enrollment. With regards to Hammond, I merged Clark & Hammond's enrollments, as well as Gavit & Morton's, as is the consolidation plan. The Evansville schools, for example, tend to get a bit of an enrollment bump. I have no idea what Park Tudor's enrollment is, but they're solidly 1A. Danville's result tomorrow will determine whether it is 3A or 4A for the next two years. By this math, that will likely affect Delta (which goes down to 3A if Danville wins). UPDATE: I have made edits to reflect LCC being in 2A and Madison (not Madison-Grant) in 3A. IHSAA enrollment - Copy of Sheet1 (3).pdf

You could put the period after "posts" and eliminated the rest of the sentence and it would still be accurate.