crimsonace1

I don't think Carmel nor Center Grove accept out-of-district transfers. Zionsville doesn't, either. It's still up to the receiving school to accept the transfer.

I graduated from Pike in the early 1990s and that was definitely the case. We had a broad range from very upper-middle-class/upper-class areas, to solidly working-class neighborhoods with older housing stock and very low SES populations. The further south you went from 96th Street to 38th Street (and the further east - especially inside I-465), generally, the more the socioeconomics changed.

Valpo has lost only one game in two years - to a two-time state champion team at Lucas Oil. I've long believed they were the top 5A team in the north (and 2/3 were Dwenger/Zionsville).

Myers is very good. Their offense is very simple and geared toward being effective even with small linemen. They run it very well. It's a very unique offense based on a lot of misdirection - there's a jet sweep action on almost every play and then a power going to the opposite side ... and play action off that if you sell out to stop the run. They have 11 TDs on 23 completed passes this year.

Part of the reason why is the IHSAA changes the Success Factor threshholds every time Cathedral is about to drop. Not sure if it's just coincidence, but the change from 4 points to 3 to stay up (and the "you can't drop more than one division" rule) came after Cathedral was going to drop to 4A, and it was again adjusted from 3 points to 2 when Cathedral would have dropped to 4A (and the entire 4A & 5A tournament fields were reshuffled because the classes and sectionals had already been announced).

Conference Indiana was essentially a merger of what was left of the SCC and the old Central Suburban Athletic Conference (Pike/Decatur Central/Franklin Central/Lawrence Central/Southport/Perry Meridian) as both had been shrunk by teams lost to other conferences. The SCC was really hit by the loss of CG (to the MIC) and Shelbyville (to the HHC). Rushville had left a few years before to start the HHC in 1994. Seymour found its way to the Hoosier Hills. The CSAC only lost Lawrence North to the MIC, but that dropped their membership to 6. LC wasn't invited to the MIC as LN had a bigger athletic profile at the time in almost every sport. Pike's enrollment was still well below 2,000 at the time the MIC was formed, too. What's interesting is Center Grove bounced between both the CSAC and the SCC - its departure from CSAC for the SCC (along with Brownsburg & Greenfield-Central leaving) is what opened the door for Southport & Perry Meridian to join in 1991 and turn CSAC into an all-Marion County league. And Southport is the only remnant of the CSAC remaining in Conference Indiana. Pike & LC went to the MIC and swapped spots with the TH schools, Franklin Central to the Hoosier Crossroads, Decatur Central & Perry Meridian to the Mid-State. Conference Indiana, when it was formed, was an incredible boys basketball conference. Pike won three state titles while in the league, Bloomington North won one (in addition to its 1997 title) and played in two State Finals, Bloomington South has won a couple, LC made a semistate run in the first year of class hoops. FC had its runs with JaJuan Johnson. One could argue Conference Indiana was the best basketball league in the state - or even with the MIC - in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

8-man football isn't another sport, it's simply an addition to boys football. Title IX won't be an issue. Lacrosse would work, but their teams don't want the IHSAA to sponsor it because they don't want to give up playing on Sundays.

Yes. I've been to the last three home games and fans have been in every level. Capped at 12,500. They're very well spread-out.

Yes. it was fought tooth and nail when the 1.5 multiplier was proposed, with lawsuits threatened and religious discrimination being discussed as a reason to fight it.

Danville & Tri-West both need to grow a lot before they join the Mid-State. Both are 3A (Danville on the border of 4A) and most of the Mid-State is 5A (and in PM's case, 6A) and growing a lot faster than those two schools. Whiteland is also on the 6A borderline and Franklin won't be too far behind. Danville & TW might outgrow the Sagamore someday, as they outgrew the old West Central Conference in the late 1990s, but I don't see the Mid-State in their future.

One idea I've heard floated in other states - to use the higher number of your school's enrollment OR the average enrollment of your opponents (largest & smallest excepted so playing Carmel doesn't skew the numbers).

They would say "we're pretty happy in the Hoosier Heritage Conference right now" and politely decline. The Mid-State had been at 7 teams for a while. They wouldn't have been turned away had they shown interest.

Coach Chambers is fantastic and the turnaround he engineered at Marion was very impressive. It's hard to build a feeder program for an IPS school with the way their schools are set up (a junior high doesn't necessarily feed one high school), the difficult socioeconomic circumstances and a very fluid population ... and also with the reality that a lot of the athletes end up at Cathedral, Chatard and Scecina and a few others will head to a charter school (or transfer out of district to a township school).

I know for a fact NP, G-C and MV are not looking for another conference right now.

I'm not sure the conferences made mistakes as much as the schools themselves by going into leagues that are not really good fits football-wise. The HCC and Mid-State were both seven-team conferences. Each needed another team to balance it out - eight teams is the perfect number for a conference. In both cases, Conference Indiana - despite the horrendous travel - seemed to be a really good cultural and athletic fit. PM/Southport/FC held down the southside of Indy. Columbus & Bloomington are not terrible drives for either down I-65. The only real problem with CI is the travel to Terre Haute. While FC is rapidly changing with new neighborhoods popping up all over Franklin Township, it feels like a strange fit as a township school in a league full of north/west side suburban schools. While the Mid-State has one township school in Decatur Central, its bread-and-butter is mid-sized community schools, not a 6A school in a two-school district. However, remember there are more sports than football. Franklin Central has a really solid cross country/track program (the HCC is a *powerhouse* in CC) and more than holds its own in basketball - where the HCC is one of the top leagues in the state. Perry Meridian has a great wrestling program that fits well in the Mid-State with Franklin (which also has one of the stronger wrestling programs in the state). While both feel like really strange fits in their conferences, there are individual programs that fit really well. As far as some of the other leagues ... New Palestine is a mid-sized 4A school that punches above its weight in football but is already in a league with its area rivals. MV doesn't really fit in the Mid-State geographically and doesn't really fit in the HCC in terms of school size yet ... and is also already in a league with its two longest-standing, biggest rivals in New Palestine and Pendleton Heights. Neither one is looking to change conferences right now. Columbus East dominates the Hoosier Hills in football, but fits the profile of that league very well in other sports. It, too, may not be looking to move (and would probably fit better in Conference Indiana, but I believe the BCSC board has tried to keep the two Columbus schools in different conferences to tone down the competition between the two).

He did dress. He was also IU's special teams scout team player of the week this week.

But the schools in the sectional do split the gate from all of the games (minus expenses), so it hurts their bottom line. Moreso, a team isn't going to want to give up its homefield advantage even if it means more people in the stands. The health departments might frown on that, too.

Colts games are being played with 12,500 spectators distanced throughout the stadium. I've been to the last two games and people are very spread out. Concessions are prepackaged only, not a lot of crowding at entrances. I think the finals will be fine, especially if each school gets a specific allotment. Lucas Oil has 63K seats. It's a pretty big place.

No. There are no "senior year transfer rules." Eligibility rules are consistent from grades 9-12.

Remember, the original "stay up" threshold was 4 points (which would mean one state title, a semistate/sectional or two regionals). I remember leaving Lucas Oil after the insane New Palestine-Snider game in 2015 thinking "the silver lining is New Palestine will be back in 4A while it's going through a rebuilding cycle" ... and then two months later, the IHSAA changes the threshold to 3 points AND said a bumped team could only drop one class (which prevented Cathedral from dropping from 6A to 4A). It was lowered to 2 points in 2019. I believe that change was made *after* the new classifications and sectional alignments were announced. I believe Cathedral was the only football team affected, as it would've dropped to 4A but the two-point threshold kept them in 5A, although a handful of basketball teams had two points and were also affected by the change.

Waiting for the Department of Education to post the school count day enrollment data to be able to reasonably forecast who might be moving up/down, but they aren't moving fast enough for me yet ;).

Valpo would need to win a semistate to move to 6A. They got 3 points last year (sect-reg-ss) and would need to repeat that path this year. A regional win would leave them with five points. (they may move up due to enrollment, though).

Along with Greenwood, NP would be - by far - the smallest school in the Mid-State and would be the smallest school in Conference Indiana, while also being an hour-plus drive from every school in the league besides Southport. While NP is growing, it's not quite to that size/level yet in most sports. Remember, there are 19 other varsity sports to think about. You don't just make a move for football. It affects basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, et al. NP is a strong cultural fit in the HHC and sits in the middle of the conference enrollment-wise. NP does play a lot of Mid-State schools in most sports, but has no natural rivals there as it does in the HHC with MV/G-C/PH. It would have nothing in common with any CI school. Circle City is a private school conference. NP doesn't exactly fit that profile.

As you've repeatedly done over the years, you assume high school football (which is community and education-based) is college football (where teams are 100% recruited) or pro football (where a draft and salary cap maintain competitive balance). The IHSAA's job is not to "maintain competitive balance." That is next to impossible in high school athletics, because one community might have better resources than another. Its job is to run state tournaments, oversee rules, license officials and allow opportunities for education-based teams to compete with each other. The only thing it can really do is make adjustments to the class system (which it has, with the splitting of 5A into two 32-team classes and the success factor). It is always going to allow a student to play unless there is a bona-fide reason the transfer was for athletic reasons (and usually not accompanied by a change of residence) and even then, there is an independent review board that can veto a decision of limited or no eligibility. DT's original throw-it-against-the-wall ridiculous point (that NP football is somehow "slipping quickly" because it's 5-1 in a rebuilding year, with the only blemish a 13-point road loss to a 7-0 senior-laden team in a rivalry game, despite dealing with an incredible number of injuries) was rebuffed, so he pivots to his claiming NP's success is based on transfers, which is also ridiculous. People are going to move into high-growth areas, and some of those people might be good football players. New Palestine's success begins with good coaching, an incredible youth league that develops players, and tremendous community support. Period.

The family business was moved to the Indianapolis area to take advantage of better business opportunities. The family bought a home in New Palestine. The father is from Hancock County. It might have also provided a better educational opportunity for their three sons who were in school. You cannot simply say "sorry, can't go, you have to stay in Muncie 70 miles away from your family." Schools in large, growing suburban communities attract new families. Property values in New Palestine are through the roof right now because there are a lot more people trying to move here than there are houses available. Neighborhoods cannot be built fast enough to meet the demand. Families who are looking to move are going to seek out good school districts for their children. If my kids were football players, I'd want them to go to an academically successful school (which New Palestine is) and know they're going to be coached by the best coaches available (which New Palestine has). There are lots of reasons a family will choose to do so. My son is a soccer player. We decided to move to New Palestine before he enrolled in kindergarten because of the community and the quality of the schools (and the fact that I work here). The fact that the school had a pretty strong athletic program didn't factor as much into our decision, but it certainly didn't hurt. For you to claim you know all about a family's reason for moving - *ESPECIALLY* when it has been reported pretty widely in the press (especially in Muncie) from people who actually have talked to them - is a bit concerning.