crimsonace1

A lot of ADs see eight as the optimum number for a conference. Allows 7 football games, two non-con games, with no scheduling headaches because you can play noncon in Weeks 1-2 and conference games Weeks 3-9. Can play your conference basketball games on Fridays and spread them out throughout the year (or, for some leagues, B/G DHs in Dec/Jan). Allows for a double-round robin in baseball that only takes half the schedule. Ten makes the schedule a bit unwieldy. Six is too few. Any odd number creates headaches because someone is always going to be off.

Meanwhile, they increased funding for charter and voucher schools several orders of magnitude higher than the increase in public school funding. Rural schools are getting hammered because their enrollment is declining.

I teach economics. I work multiple side jobs, including one very visible one as the broadcaster for one of the five professional sports teams in Indianapolis. I basically work as an extra staff member in our athletic department running our website and broadcasts. I worked for a newspaper for nine years. I think I know the importance of businesses to our community, given we discuss it ALMOST EVERY DAY in class. These requirements are beyond insulting and essentially show the legislature is listening to the Chamber of Commerce instead of the Department of Education. The CoC is much more influential in dictating education policy than the DoE. I don't blame Jennifer McCormick for stepping away, but I wish she would remain. She's been the biggest advocate for teachers, but she's beyond frustrated with the actions of the legislature, which is controlled BY HER OWN PARTY. It's disgusting and insulting.

He was pretty open about his identity here when he was coaching at Howe and even before then. I wouldn't "identify" a member if it wasn't known, but he identified himself pretty often.

Whiteland is often really good and is very well-coached. They tend to go in two-year cycles, where they're loaded one year and then rebuilding the next (although they were 8-3 last year and sound like they will be pretty good again). Whiteland has also played the two closest regular-season games against New Palestine in the last six years. A potential path of Whiteland-Decatur Central-Bloomington South/Castle will be a gauntlet for NP to get to Lucas Oil.

Not specifically football-related, but longtime GID denizen LCCFan09er (Kristof Kendrick) has been named the new head basketball coach at Warren Central. Congrats.

After busing was implemented, some people called Ben Davis "Washington West" because so many of Indianapolis Washington's students were transferred to Ben Davis. But the natural rate of migration within a metro area also meant a lot of the old Washington High attendance area moved into Wayne Township. Now, we've been seeing over the last 20 years a lot of Ben Davis families migrating across the county line to Avon (and that's not an abnormal phenomenon - many of my classmates at Pike - many of whose parents went to Northwest or Washington or Broad Ripple - have their kids in Brownsburg, Carmel or Zionsville; Carmel also has a lot of the population that once lived in Washington Township and went to North Central, which in turn saw its boom after people moved north from Shortridge and Broad Ripple. HSE and Mt. Vernon both have a lot of former Lawrence Township families, New Pal has a lot of students whose parents went to Warren Central and Franklin Central).

I-69 being completed to Bloomington changes the calculus a lot. SW Indiana is now more accessible to the Bloomington area.

The IHSAA will minimize the drives as much as possible. There are three teams in the Region, so Jeff fits very well there as it's halfway between Hamilton County & Lake County, so it's got a drive either way. That allows for a grouping of four along the Toll Road corridor in north central Indiana, and there are three teams in the Fort Wayne area (counting Warsaw). Only one team was going to be sent north from Hamilton County and Noblesville is the farthest northeast team. It got the short straw travel-wise, but with 11 schools north of SR 26, someone was going to.

Interesting, the change has officially been made. That makes much more geographic sense. Attica is in 45.

I forgot 6/7 had switched numbers. The Southport/Perry Meridian sectional has historically been Sectional 7.

Some thoughts 6A: North is pretty self-explanatory. Lafayette Jeff had to go northwest. Someone had to go northeast, and Noblesville is the farthest north/east school in Hamilton County. The biggest question was what to do with 5/6/7 with Zionsville entering. IHSAA decided to split Pike/BD and group Zionsville with Pike, Brownsburg & Avon. That moved BD to Sectional 7 and allowed Sectional 6 (WC/LC/LN/NC) to largely stay together in a grouping that has been pretty consistent through most sports. 5A: Makes perfect sense how the IHSAA handled the Elkhart/Valpo/SB/Mishawaka situation in sectional 9/10. Again, the north writes itself. The south sees some changes - the Bloomington schools get grouped with Evansville instead of Terre Haute, but I-69 being completed changes the calculus there. I-69 now makes Evansville closer to Bloomington than Terre Haute drive-time wise, and also creates an I-70 sectional w/THN-THS-DC-Plainfield (which is pretty consistent with how the IHSAA groups other sports). That basically left two schools on islands - BNL & Seymour. IHSAA decided to send BNL south and Seymour north. 4A: Shelbyville & Beech Grove trade places, with BG going south and Shelby going north with its HHC brethren for the first time (instead of having to deal with East Central every year). Mooresville/Martinsville being grouped with the Cincinnati/Louisville area schools will be a bear of a drive. Same with Northview - which is on an island - and the Evansville-area schools. 3A: By far the toughest class to group in the south every year. The five I-74 schools in southeastern Indiana are often together, and the question is, who do they go with? This time, three schools down the I-65 corridor, which will make for some interesting travel. Southwestern Indiana being grouped horizontally along I-64 instead of vertically along U.S. 41/231 is different than normal. Marion County gets split in half, with the north side schools going toward Lafayette/Hamilton County, while the south side schools get grouped in with west central Indiana (Hendricks County & I-70). Geographically, it on the surface makes sense to send WL to 18, Knox to 19, TV to 20 and Northwestern to 21, but that would've split Northwestern away from the Maconaquah/Peru/Oak Hill clump, which is likely why WL is going south instead of north. 2A: Again, grouping southern Indiana is really difficult. Triton Central & Union County get the short straw here - especially UC, which is closer to Dayton than it is to Mitchell & Paoli. As is typical, the three northern Indiana sectionals are grouped Northwest (Region area), north central (SB/MIsh area) and northeast (FW area) with the fourth being the clump around Anderson/Kokomo/Marion. The problem is, there are 18 schools for 16 spots in Central Indiana, and two had to go south. I probably would have moved Union County into the I-70 sectional and bumped one of the Indianapolis schools (Scecina or Howe) south as those schools have easier access to I-65. 1A: Some interesting groupings. The one that stuck out to me most was Attica being sent north instead of in its usual sectional along the Wabash River. Sectionals 47 and 48 write themselves and are the two easiest to group in the class, but I would've flipped their regionals by renumbering Sectional 45 as 47. Only real change I'd make is Attica to 45, Traders Point to 46 and Sheridan to 42 ... and possibly flip South Newton and North White. [edit: Attica was moved to 45 and Traders Point to 42. I'd still flip TPCA & Sheridan for geographic reasons ,but it's a solid map]

The sectionals are now mapped. Check out the link for a map of the 2019-20 sectionals (note: for 5A/6A, the 2019 alignment is the one listed. Valpo moves to Sectional 9 in 2020, SB Adams/Mishawaka move to Sectional 10 & Elkhart moves to Sectional 2. (and if you're interested in boys basketball, here is that map. Regionals are grouped in colors - 1-4 in each class are red/orange, 5-8 are purple/blue, 9-12 are green/yellow and 13-16 are grey/black/brown).

When the IHSAA published its class assignments a few weeks ago, it published that Elkhart Central/Memorial will be 5A in 2019 and Elkhart will be 6A in 2020. Valpo will play one year as the smallest school in 6A and then replace Elkhart in 5A.

Part of the equation is that some schools simply will not schedule Cathedral - which is not uncommon for top programs (Some schools don't schedule games against P/P schools at all. Others will not schedule games where they believe they'll not be competitive). It's not easy to find opponents, even for public schools with a reputation for being powerhouses, but especially a powerhouse P/P like Cathedral. Add in the fact that most of the teams that *would* schedule them have conference schedules and thus 6 or 7 weeks of games are already locked in, and it becomes difficult. I'm not sure Cathedral's globetrotting schedule has as much to do with its willingness to test itself as simply the ability to find games (and often, against opponents that are in a similar situation). Cathedral's schedule is further hampered by the fact that it has no home field, thus has to schedule its home games around someone else's schedule. Cathedral's schedule, as Rudy pointed out above, used to largely be made up of other P/Ps in the city and IPS schools. But now that most of the P/Ps the Irish used to play are in the Circle City conference and IPS has struggled as much of its population has moved to the townships and now to the first-ring suburbs outside of Marion County (and as those schools have grown, they have traditional opponents they often play and/or are locked into conference schedules), it's harder to find local games.

Here's the map so you can try to project the sectional fields: https://drive.google.com/open?id=153gxokpw917Ny2QyJyMozaPMxkCQOyQb&usp=sharing Here's my very unscientific stab at it: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vXlagxgmD3_KwFJUNHTUeDtSd9ylMmsa&usp=sharing

That would make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. It also makes the south come together pretty easily. 5: HSE/Fishers/LN/LC 6: Pike/BD/Avon/Brownsburg 7: WC/Tech/Southport/Perry Meridian 8: Franklin Central/CG/Columbus North/East

I'm not sure how much 8-man football would *expand* the game, but it might provide an option for some smaller schools. What it might do is, with participation numbers sliding a bit - and enrollment numbers declining at a lot of smaller rural schools - save existing football programs.

No. I'd love to see co-op programs established but that's not on the IHSAA's radar right now.

Per this story from Kyle Neddenriep, not only is the IFCA changing the Mr. Football voting process, but it is also "studying" 8-man football. I'd *love* to see 8-man football (or even 6-man) to provide more opportunities for players at smaller schools which might not have the enrollment to field 11-man teams. Several states do so for smaller schools.

MV will be 5A before long. McCordsville is one of the fastest-growing communities in the state, as both Lawrence Township & Fishers are spilling across the county line. Great facilities, decent community support. But New Palestine to the south is also growing, has a recent championship pedigree, and has been rapidly upgrading facilities.

Westfield has great facilities, great community, lots of recent success, good location and will grow. Their biggest issue is they'll always be in a sectional with Carmel and two of Noblesville/HSE/Fishers/Zionsville, all of whom have similar facilities, resources and student populations.

A stab at 1A 41: Gary Roosevelt, Lake Station, South Central, North Judson, Culver, West Central, Winamac, Triton 42: North White, Tri-County, Frontier, Carroll (F), Caston, South Newton, Lafayette Catholic, Clinton Central 43: Fremont, Churubusco, Adams Central, South Adams, Southern Wells, Southwood, Northfield, North Miami 44: Indiana Deaf, Park Tudor, Traders Point, Sheridan, Madison-Grant, Tri-Central, Taylor, Clinton Prairie 45: Wes-Del, Knightstown, Tri, Cambridge City Lincoln, Hagerstown, Anderson Prep, Monroe Central, Union City 46: Edinburgh, North Decatur, South Decatur, Milan, Oldenburg Academy, Lutheran, Tindley, Covenant Christian 47: Cloverdale, South Putnam, Riverton Parke, Parke Heritage, North Vermillion, Fountain Central, Covington, Attica 48: Tecumseh, Perry Central, North Central (F), Springs Valley, West Washington, North Daviess, Eastern Greene, Rock Creek Nope, same school. I screwed up. I missed somebody somewhere.

My stab at 2A. Again, things are a bit tricky in the south. 33: Whiting, Hammond Noll, Gary Bowman, Andrean, Wheeler, Boone Grove, North Newton, Rensselaer 34: LaVille, Bremen, Fairfield, Central Noble, Prairie Heights, Eastside, Woodlan, FW Luers, 35: Rochester, Pioneer, Delphi, Cass, Wabash, Manchester, Whitko, Bluffton 36: Eastbrook, Blackford, Eastern (H), Tipton, Frankton, Lapel, Winchester, Elwood 37: Northeastern, Union County, Centerville, Eastern Hancock, Triton Central, Heritage Christian, Scecina, Shenandoah, I. Howe 38: Seeger, South Vermillion, Southmont, Western Boone, North Putnam, Cascade, Monrovia, Speedway, 39: Mitchell, Paoli, Eastern, Clarksville, Providence, Switzerland County, Pekin Eastern, Triton Central 40: North Posey, Ev. Mater Dei, South Spencer, Tell City, Linton, North Knox, Forest Park, Crawford County Not sure what happened there but that's corrected now. If you zoom in, the ones on top of each other are separated. Each school's site is marked with a pin and some are pretty close together.

My stab at 4A 17: East Chicago, Hammond Gavit, Hammond Morton, Gary West, Highland, Griffith, Hobart, Lowell 18: Kankakee Valley, New Prairie, Culver Academy, Plymouth, SB Riley, SB St. Joseph, SB Clay, NorthWood 19: Northridge, Wawasee, East Noble, Angola, DeKalb, Columbia City, Leo, New Haven 20: FW South, FW Wayne, Huntington North, Logansport, Western, Marion, Mississinewa, Delta 21: Northview, Martinsville, Mooresville, Cathedral, Roncalli, Crispus Attucks, Shortridge, Beech Grove 22: New Castle, Greenfield-Central, Mt. Vernon, Pendleton Heights, Muncie Central, Frankfort, Lebanon 23: Madison, Jennings County, East Central, South Dearborn, Shelbyville, Connersville, Richmond, Greenwood 24: Ev. Reitz, Ev. Memorial, Ev. Harrison, Ev. Central, Boonville, Jasper, Silver Creek 3A has a LOT of gray area, especially in the north. Lots of clumps of 5-6 schools together. The realignment committee has its work cut out for it. 25: Hammond Clark, Hammond, Calumet, River Forest, Hanover Central, Knox, Glenn, SB Washington 26: Mishawka Marian, Jimtown, Tippecanoe Valley, West Noble, Lakeland, Garrett, FW Concordia, Heritage 27: Bellmont, Norwell, Peru, Northwestern, Maconaquah, Oak Hill, Yorktown, Hamilton Heights 28: Benton Central, West Lafayette, North Montgomery, Crawfordsville, Guerin Catholic, Brebeuf, Twin Lakes 29: Sullivan, Edgewood, Owen Valley, West Vigo, Greencastle, Danville, Tri-West, I.Ritter 30: Lawrenceburg, Batesville, Franklin County, Greensburg, Rushville, I.Manual, I.Washington, I.Chatard 31: Corydon, North Harrison, Salem, Scottsburg, Charlestown, Brownstown Central, Brown County, Southridge 32: Mt. Vernon (P), Ev. Bosse, Heritage Hills, Gibson Southern, Princeton, PIke Central, Vincennes, Washington