US31

My belief is that it should be a rolling 4 year cycle...not just 2. With a two year cycle in a specific window (what we have now)...you will always have MORE of these instances. Exactly what I think you are trying to point out. However it is also accurate that MOST of the success factor examples are p/p's. 100% true that a public can also skate through our current SF cycle rules. To keep the p/p apologists from soiling their diapers I heretoforth declare I shall always utilize Western Boone as my first example of any success factor flaw for the entirety of my existance on GID. If not, may my next bowl of lucky charms be without marshmallows! I hope this calms the hearts of the holy fathers 🤪

Yes. teams that accrue enough points in any previous two seasons would move up, those that have been SF’d up and don’t earn enough points to “stay up” in any previous two years would move down. Sectionals would need to be adjusted each year for those teams. This is not insurmountable. No. It’s always a two season move. It just doesn’t have to be in a specific “window” of two seasons.

Harder to do in football because you can only have one game a week for the tournament. Basketball can adjust the number of games in the sectional, regional, semistate "tournaments" if needed.

Regardless....you labeled the divisions by size. Goshen is quite a bit larger than NR. And this is a not a football only conference. They should be swapped if your gonna go with "Bigs" & "Littles". Now when enought Goshen people move to NR, Fairfield, and NW that it changes...you can swap them.

This isn't the worst idea in the world. I don't see this having a high chance of occuring, but it could work. I'd flip Goshen & Northridge though based on enrollement. Most of these teams play non-con. Several have played in football over the years. I could talk myself into this....just think its not a high chance of happening.

No argument from me....just saying that a 7 team conference would allow room to add schools. NP from a competitive perspective would be a fit...but agree on the drive time. I don't see Goshen moving from NLC...they struggle to be competitive in much in that league, and are shrinking (they just closed an Elementary). I don't see them jumping to an almost all 5A/6A schedule. I could see Concord and Mishawaka deciding to leave the NLC...it seems like the cavies just got there so not sure how much they'd want change again. I'll leave it to others to start the debate about whether the two P/P schools need to worry to much about "enrollment"...lol. I agree with PantherPride though that IF these schools leave the NIC, it puts Penn in a pickle. I think Penn tries to peel off the best of whats around in the 5A & 6A schools

Can't agree with this more. I would argue there may be some hay to be made with the following: Penn Elkhart Warsaw StJ Mish Mar (FW Carroll) (Homestead) Warsaw becomes a LOT more interested if you can pull Homestead & Carroll. Which would bring you to a decent 7 team conference. Longest commute is about 90 minutes. Which is long, but on par for the "long drives" in many other conferences. I think the new league in the OP along with something like this would be a much better fit for all these schools. I like it so much I'm going to trademark this the Highway 30's conference (H3C), since there would be a lot of driving on 31, 30, & 33 🤪 At 7 schools you still have room to add a New Prarie or similar, Penn can still play Indy & out of state powers, Warsaw gets a bigger stage to play on instead of just being the big fish in the NLC pond, StJ and MM get to rattle horns with some bigger schools and maybe make some noise to attract some Catholics that maybe were thinking about heading west.. Just my 2 cents and likely worth as much.

Overall I like those, however…. I still say this doesn’t help Penn (and to a lesser degree Elkhart) rise to where they should be. Penn is the albatross in all of this. They really don’t fit with more than two or three of these schools (Elkhart, Warsaw, maybe Mishawaka but I may be saying that more out of tradition). Penn is a day late and a dollar short driving the creation of a Northern Indiana Version of MIC/HCC. The schools in Northern Indiana are rather used to very short travel distances…unlike what many of us are used to in Indy Metro Conferences (that sometimes have included schools from TH, Laf, etc) The best situation for Penn would have been to try and join/create primarily 5A/6A conference that includes either region schools, FTW schools, or both. I don’t know how realistic that is now. Penn folks can tell me I’m wrong (and they may be right), but I look at Penn and see an HCC style school with no one to compete against. Kudos to them for trying to improve their football schedule, but across the board their athletic success has suffered from a lack of near peer opponents.

I have no way of knowing, but I feel like Fairfield and Wawasee are fairly happy in their current conferences (NECC & NLC repectively). Wawasee has recently struggled in NLC but have been at the top in a wide variety of sports in the not to distant past. Unless their enrollment is dropping, I don't see a reason for them to make the jump. Fairfield is interesting as they are definitley trending up and are becoming a big fish in the NECC pond. They will likely continue to see enrollment growth as you see more families leaving "other nearby schools" for a better situation. There are still other similar size schools in the NECC, so FF isn't completley outgrowing them yet.

For the life of me, NEVER understood the thought process in adding the small schools to the NIC with Penn. It wasn't a good thing for those schools, and in my opinion has been a reason for the decline of Penn in a lot of sports. Penn needed to either go West or East and join a more appropriate conference or try to pick a few NW or FtW area schools and become a toll road conference. I know they had the two divisions...but "Blah, blah, blah,...." Rochester woulud be an obvious fit if they wanted to go with TV (eons ago, weren't they in NLC?) Would NJ view this as a superior conference? Would seem weird if they weren't with Knox/Lav... Curious if this new conference has any desire to add some P/P schools. I could completely understand them saying no.....But StJ & Marian? CMA? And if CMA maybe Culver Comm?

I can’t see Harrison adding small schools to its non-con schedule anymore. Coach Peebles is building for bigger things than playing TW.

Some of the smaller schools west of SB or south of the 20 Bypass are allowing for out of district transfers. Guess where most of them come from …

I heard that in 2028 there is gonna be a weekend extravaganza between the MIC and HCC. Here are the marquee Matchups: Carmel (MIC) vs CG (HCC South) - 1st regular season Copper Kettle game since 2022 BD (MIC) vs Noblesville (HCC North) - Inaugural game for the Giant Wooden Jason Simmons Decatur Central (MIC) vs Zionsville (HCC North) - The Dirty Bird Tech (MIC) vs Cathedral (HCC South) - If Cathedral wins they play all home games at Tech in 2029 😁 All of this was supposed to be in purple....

good thing we are building a 20k stadium for a team that averaged a little over 8k a game last year! Can’t wait for them to host HS football games in the fall to keep the lights on!!!! looks like a great venue for a weekend extravaganza https://www.indystar.com/story/money/2023/02/17/1b-eleven-park-developers-give-a-first-look-and-their-plan-diamond-chain-site/69914215007/

Not really trying to argue with anyone…I hadn’t seen it, but based on the descriptions in this thread I was expecting the Carmel Coach to go NDO_Champ busting through the crowd. I didn’t see that… So decided to give a more favorable opinion of what might have been going on. I didn’t mean to go full Zapruder though🤣 And again…I couldn’t tell wait happened once he headed through the crowd. I’d defer to anyone who had a better view.