crimsonace1

In the initial release of enrollments, Culver was given a 3A enrollment. That was the change - from the original projections, not from last year.

4A South is a complete mess because of South Dearborn & Madison leaving East Central on an island ... as well as Northview sitting on an island in western Indiana. 17: East Chicago, Gary West, Highland, Hobart, Lowell, Kankakee Valley, New Prairie, SB Washington 18: SB St. Joseph, SB Riley, Plymouth, Culver Military, NorthWood, Wawasee, Northridge, Columbia City 19: Angola, DeKalb, East Noble, Leo, New Haven, FW South, FW Wayne, Huntington North 17/18: six teams fit together well in 17 and New Prairie makes sense as the seventh. The question is, who is the eighth - do you send Culver, which is a longer trip and keep the SB schools together, or do you send SB Washington? 18/19: You have seven schools in the "north central" area and nine in what I consider the Northeast Corner/Fort Wayne area. One of them has to go west. East Noble would probably be the one that would fit most geographically to go west, but that would cut them off from the other Northeast Corner teams. Columbia City is the westernmost school of the NEC/FW-area schools, so they got moved. 20: Jay County, Muncie Central, Marion, Mississinewa, Kokomo, Western, Logansport, Frankfort. This one is spread-out, but pretty easy. The four southern sectionals are a problem because of the outliers. The questions - which is the 7-team sectional, what to do with East Central and what to do with Northview. Here was my best guess 21: Lebanon, Brebeuf, I. Shortridge, I. Attucks, I. Washington, Beech Grove, Roncalli, Northview (logic of placing Northview here: U.S. 40 connects it with Indy) 22: New Palestine, Greenfield-Central, Mt. Vernon, Pendleton Heights, New Castle, Richmond, Connersville, East Central 23: BNL, Jennings County, Edgewood, Shelbyville, Martinsville, Mooresville, Greenwood (made this the 7-team sectional because of the travel) 24: Jasper, Boonville, Ev. Harrison, Ev. Bosse, Ev. Memorial, Ev. Reitz, Ev. Central, Silver Creek

5A is interesting because of the "pairs" in the south that are largely interchangeable. 9/10/11 are extremely cut-and-dried and obvious: 9: Hammond Central, Hammond Morton, Merrillville, Munster 10: Chesterton, Valpo, Michigan City, LaPorte 11: SB Adams, Mishawaka, Concord, Goshen Then it gets dicey. You have three Fort Wayne schools, two Lafayette-area schools and Anderson sitting on an island. While it will be ridiculous travel, it makes sense to keep the Tippecanoe County schools together and make Anderson travel. That also makes the rest of the map fit together. 12: FW Dwenger, FW North, FW Snider, Anderson 13: Harrison, McCutcheon, Decatur Central, Plainfield (Another option would be Dwenger/North/Snider/Harrison and McCutcheon/Anderson/DC/Plainfield, but this makes less sense) The rest of the state is a bunch of pairs. Option 1 (most likely) 14: TH North/TH South, Bloomington North/Bloomington South 15: Franklin, Whiteland, Columbus East, Seymour 16: Ev. North, Castle, Floyd Central, New Albany Logic: SR 46 connects Terre Haute & Bloomington, they're about an hour apart. The Sectional 15 teams are connected via I-65 and are in adjoining counties Sectional 16 - I-64 connects the Evansville & Falls City areas. It's easier/quicker for the EVV teams to get to the Falls City area than it is to make the drive up U.S. 41 to Terre Haute. Option 2 14: Franklin, Whiteland, Bloomington North, Bloomington South 15: Columbus East, Seymour, Floyd Central, New Albany 16: TH North, TH South, Ev. North, Castle Option 3 (highly unlikely) 14: TH North, TH South, Franklin, Whiteland 15: Columbus East, Seymour, Floyd Central, New Albany 16: Bloomington North, Bloomington South, Ev. North, Castle (this would've been unthinkable prior to I-69)

6A is pretty cut and dried in the south 5: Brownsburg, Avon, Ben Davis, Pike 6: Cathedral, Lawrence North, Lawrence Central, North Central 7: Southport, Perry Meridian, Tech, Warren Central 8: Franklin Central, Center Grove, Columbus North, Jeffersonville The north is a mess because there are nine schools north of US 24 and seven south of it. 1: Crown Point, Lake Central, Portage, Lafayette Jeff 2: Penn, Elkhart, Warsaw, Carroll 3: FW Northrop, Homestead, Hamilton Southeastern, Fishers 4: Carmel, Zionsville, Westfield, Noblesville Logic: HSE/Fishers are right off I-69, so they have easier access to Fort Wayne despite being farther south than Westfield/Noblesville. Jeff fits neatly into Sectional 1 as it's off I-65 and pretty much equidistant from the Region and Hamilton County. Another option 1: Crown Point, Lake Central, Portage, Penn 2: Elkhart, Warsaw, FW Northrop, Carroll 3: HSE, Fishers, Homestead, Noblesville 4: Westfield, Zionsville, Lafayette Jeff, Carmel Here, eight of the nine northern teams stay in Sectionals 1 & 2, although they are more spread out (Penn/Elkhart get split), Jeff gets a *slightly* shorter drive and only Homestead gets sent south instead of two FW-area schools.

A few changes from what we had expected ... Bishop Chatard listed in Class 3A (instead of success bump to 4A). Adjustment in Culver Academies' enrollment pushes them to 4A. River Forest was on the 2A/3A line, they go up to 3A. Class changes New in 6A Zionsville (up) Jeffersonville (up) FW Northrop (up) Cathedral (up-success) New in 5A Chesterton (down) Merrillville (down) FW Snider (down) Hammond Morton (up) New in 4A Kokomo (down) Bedford NL (down) New Palestine (down) Ind. Washington (up) Ev. Bosse (up) Brebeuf (up) Edgewood (up) SB Washington (up) New in 3A Delta (down) SB Clay (down) Madison (down) South Dearborn (down) Ind. Chatard (down) Griffith (down) Purdue Poly - Indy (new) Woodlan (up) Speedway (up) Fairfield (up) Monrovia (up) Boone Grove (up) Western Boone (up) New in 2A Benton Central (down) Brown County (down) Ind. Ritter (down) Brownstown (down) Greencastle (down) Sullivan (down) Churubusco (up) Lake Station (up) Winamac (up) New in 1A North Newton (down) Gary Bowman (down) Dugger Union (new) NOTE: FW Dwenger (5A) and Lafayette Catholic (2A) will be reevaluated and possibly moved back down a class if they do not win a sectional title this upcoming year. Official classes Maps of each classification

Contracts are usually signed for two years and football ones especially are difficult because they require finding opponents. As late as things happened, it would be difficult for schools to find new opponents, so they'll ride by playing each other for one (or maybe two) more years, then cut ties.

Interesting that boys volleyball is played in the fall in the Region ... it's a spring sport in Central Indiana. It's almost universal in Central/Southern Indiana that if a school doesn't offer football, it has boys soccer instead (and thus homecoming is a Friday-night soccer game). Much like soccer - where some schools played a fall season and some played a spring season before the IHSAA took over, with those playing in the fall having a state tournament - I'd expect boys volleyball to be standardized as a spring sport when the IHSAA finally takes over administration of that sport (which will likely happen when it adopts girls wrestling, which is growing very rapidly).

Translation: the soccer coaches have a lot more pull in those schools than the baseball/track coaches do. Every time a new sport is added, you hear howling from the existing sport coaches in that season about "losing kids." A couple decades ago, I wrote a story about Eastern Hancock parents pushing for soccer (which never happened) and the next morning, fielded phone calls from multiple cross country coaches at other schools telling me why it was a terrible idea (the terrible idea being soccer drew kids away from cross country) ... we added boys volleyball at New Pal this spring, and I heard complaining from track coaches (again, at other schools who already have teams) about how much adding BVB "decimated" their programs.

I'm excited about 8-man football being an option for smaller schools who might not have the numbers for 11-man football. The more opportunities kids have to play, the better for the game (and for kids). Football has so much to offer. 8-man (and even 6-man) football is pretty common in the plains states where there are a lot of very small schools. Hopefully, this leads to more growth of the sport.

The college cannot host the event and third-party organizations (such as Ray Compton's group that has hosted the days at Lucas Oil Stadium and some HSBB daily shootouts at Gainbridge Fieldhouse and the Indiana Farmers Coliseum) are also not allowed to rent college-owned facilities, as it's seen as giving a recruiting advantage. However, a state association like the IHSAA *can* rent out a college facility. It happens very frequently - the IHSAA used Indiana State's arena for the girls basketball State Finals for a few years. It also uses Worthen Arena at Ball State for the gymnastics finals, IU's track, Purdue's softball stadium and IUPUI's swimming pool for their respective State Finals. It won't happen for a neutral semistate, because the rental costs are too high. But the idea of using larger high school facilities might work.

Bingo.

Out of curiosity, where is Cascade going? Back to the WIC?

A school conference is a voluntary association of schools and athletic directors. Because they are not spending taxpayer money for conference business (each team pays dues or shares costs for trophies, et al, out of athletic department funds that come from ticket sales), their meetings are not required to be open to the public. Most conferences are public school-only. Some are private-school only (the Circle City Conference being one). A few are a mix of private and charter schools (The Pioneer conference, which is a non-football conference, fits that bill). Some have a mix of both (LCC, for example, is a member of the Hoosier Conference. The Indiana Crossroads has two private schools among its eight teams).

Good catch, and how convenient that Park Tudor revised its enrollment to have *one* fewer student than Eastern Hancock after the revision. That should bump EH up to 2A and Park Tudor down to 1A.

IHSAA isn't going to send 3 different outlier schools north into 3 different sectionals. Here's the likely map for the north. 1: Lake Central, Portage, Crown Point, Lafayette Jeff 2: Elkhart, Penn, Warsaw, Carroll 3: Homestead, FW Northrop, Westfield, Noblesville 4: Carmel, Zionsville, HSE, Fishers or 1: Lake Central, Portage, Crown Point, Elkhart 2: Penn, Warsaw, FW Northrop, Carroll 3: Homestead, Noblesville, HSE, Fishers 4: Westfield, Carmel, Zionsville, Lafayette Jeff I expect the first option to carry. The south is almost set in stone: 5: NC/LC/LN/Cathedral 6: Pike/BD/Brownsburg/Avon 7: Southport/Perry/Tech/WC 8: Jeff/CN/CG/FC You're pointing out precedents - there is no precedent for sending a Hamilton County school up U.S. 31 to the Michigan border. While there are precedents on pairing Zionsville with Lafayette-area schools in *5A*, in 6A, generally Carmel & Zionsville are tied together, as are HSE/Fishers. Putting those four together makes for a sensible sectional field. The key is going to be, you're likely going to have to split up the three Allen County schools somehow just because there are nine "north" schools north of the U.S. 30 corridor and seven south. Someone is going to have to get tied into the Central Indiana schools. Homestead makes the most sense because it's the farthest southwest and closest to I-69 ... and Noblesville, HSE & Fishers are also a short distance off I-69.

Forgot to drop Wood Memorial & move Scecina to 2A. Fixed now. Thanks.

Email correspondence with the IHSAA's communications department.

FYI, we have confirmation from the IHSAA that Chatard will stay in 4A, Western Boone in 3A and LCC in 2A for both years of the upcoming cycle. Looks like WeBo is 3A - especially with a growing enrollment - for good as it is.

The first set had a bizarrely wrong number for Bremen and had 10-year-old numbers for several private schools. IHSAA uses fall enrollment numbers for classification. Bottom line, when you have 8 teams in a sectional and there aren't any teams near you, some insane sectional travel is somewhat unavoidable. I post the maps for a reason. You can look at them and see how you'd do things differently.

That was an anomaly due to there having been more than 320 football-playing schools to start the cycle + some success factor adjustments (and the Elkhart/Hammond consolidations) that caused 6A to dip below 32 teams (because the IHSAA didn't want to move teams up for a year) and the weird COVID year extending the cycle by one year. The plan, since six classes began, has always been 32 in 6A, 64 in 4A-1A and the remainder in 5A if there are 320+ schools, and 32 in 6A/5A and the remainder spread equally among 4A-1A if there are fewer than 320. It's looking like 32/32/63/63/63/63 this time because there appear to be 316 football-playing schools.

I don't understand what you mean with "classes more balanced?" The football setup is pretty well set in stone. I don't know how you can "balance" the classes any more than they already are. Also, it appears Monrovia & Cascade will both be 3A in hoops (as well as Heritage Christian). Will make some big changes in Central Indiana.

There's been some discussion about changing the class structure in the 4-class sports to add a fifth class and use hard enrollment cutoffs. Football isn't changing because of the need for 32 or 64 teams in each class due to playing one week and keeping everyone playing the same number of tournament rounds.

That's been my schtick around here for years ;). Rural populations have been declining for years and the increase in 1A private/charter schools adding football have pushed a number of teams up into higher classes. I've noticed the enrollment cutoffs between classes are much lower (but the cutoffs for 5A/6A and 4A/5A are higher). In hoops, the 2A/3A cutoff is something like 495. It's traditionally been well into the 500s.

It's pretty easy to do - especially since it will likely only affect two. Just put the 7-team sectional in 3A & 1A in an area where Chatard & LCC could easily drop in.

The north/south line is determined by number of schools. Here's how I see 5A playing out 9: Hammond Central, Morton, Munster, Merrillville 10: Valpo, Chesterton, MC, LaPorte 11: SB Adams, Mishawaka, Concord, Goshen 12: Dwenger, North, Snider, Anderson With the southern half, there's a lot of ways you can go 13: McCutcheon, Harrison, Plainfield, Decatur Central 14: TH North, TH South, Bloomington North, Bloomington South 15: Seymour, Columbus East, Franklin, Whiteland 16: Ev. North, Castle, Floyd Central, New Albany Basically, the main questions are do you split up McC/Harrison and send Harrison to 12 (and Anderson back south) or do you make Anderson make the long trip? I anticipate the IHSAA is going to try to keep the pairs together, and Anderson's location on I-69 makes it an easy send to Fort Wayne. In the south, you have multiple pairs - McC/Harrison, Plainfield/DC, the TH & Bloomington schools, Seymour/East, Franklin/Whiteland, EvN/Castle, Floyd/NA. You can mix & match those pairs in a lot of different ways. You could flip Plainfield/DC with the TH schools (and if that happens, pair Franklin/Whiteland with Plainfield/DC, then likely the Bloomington schools with the two Evansville schools, putting Seymour/East with Floyd/NA).