crimsonace1

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.

Just released. 2A/4A/6A on Friday 1A/3A/5A on Saturday ... as it would have been had the IHSAA announced the State Finals pairings before the season.

It's set up to try to prevent teams from hosting multiple rounds in a row, but it does happen occasionally because both teams were home in the previous round and one team has the northernmost sectional and southernmost regional in the pairing (or vice-versa). The one stipulation put in is a team that was on the road for both the sectional final and the regional hosts the semistate (unless both teams were on the road for those two rounds).

6A: Westfield vs. Center Grove 5A: Zionsville vs. Cathedral 4A: Hobart vs. Roncalli 3A: Chatard vs. Danville 2A: FW Luers vs. Western Boone 1A: South Adams vs. Covenant Christian 9 of the 12 state finalists from Central Indiana. Given this is the first time the IHSAA has not used pre-determined State Finals matchups, my guess is 3A/1A/5A on Friday (1A in the middle of the day so South Adams has more time to arrive) ... then 2A/4A/6A on Saturday, which also gets your two biggest classes in primetime (but also Indy-area teams so they have the shortest drives home after the late games).

You kick so the best they can do is tie with the 2-pointer. They'd have to score a TD, 2PC AND then score again in OT (and likely convert another 2PC) to beat you.

42-20 Hobart over Marion in the 4th

35-14 Roncalli late 3rd

I know your history here is throwing really bad hot takes against the wall and seeing what sticks, but this isn't even close to accurate. 3/4 of the MIC is Marion County township schools, of which LN & LC are two. The HCC has one township school and is largely comprised of large, fast-growing schools in the donut counties. Culturally and competitively, LN (the defending girls basketball state champion and a perennial boys basketball powerhouse) and LC fit in much better in the MIC. Geographically, LC and LN would be close to Fishers & HSE, but the rest of the league is farther away from the Lawrence schools than every MIC school except Center Grove. LC and LN have a lot more in common with Warren Central and North Central (their direct neighbors), as well as Pike and Ben Davis, than they do with Westfield, Brownsburg and Zionsville. They're both good conferences. They both have a good mix of schools. They're both competitive. The MIC, right now, is a better football conference and also one of the premier basketball conferences in the state. The HCC is a very good football conference but not quite at the MIC's level ... however, it is the best baseball conference in the state (by far). One could argue it's also the top soccer conference in the state, and is one of the tops in both boys and girls basketball.

New Pal had an enrollment of 1,100 at the time. Not exactly a mega-school like Carmel (although Westfield was probably about 1,500 or so in 2014 ... it has grown rapidly).

I knew you were aware, but I'm not sure many reading the thread know Cathedral and Brebeuf are independent of the Archdiocese and thus have a different setup.

Cathedral & Brebeuf are not diocesan schools - Cathedral is independent of the archdiocese and Brebeuf is a Jesuit school and thus is also independent. They don't have deanery schools directly feeding them. But it is interesting (and frankly, not surprising) that one school would sign on to rules, and then suddenly break free, giving itself a significant competitive advantage over the other Catholic schools in the area. But because it is independent of the archdiocese, it can do whatever it wants. It appears a large number of Cathedral and Brebeuf students come from Hamilton County, whose parishes are part of the Diocese of Lafayette.

The cycles begin with odd-numbered years. Columbus East won the 4A title in 2013 and then lost to New Palestine in the 2014 semistate ... that gave them the 6 points to bump up to 5A for 2015-16 (which it would have anyway due to enrollment). Because East was 6A this year and a bumped team can only drop one class, it will go back to 5A next year no matter its enrollment.