US31

A few years ago I'd have bet a paycheck that the HCC would absorb Carmel & CG (along with a few other metro schools) to become an HCC North/South of about 12 schools (with FB playing in divisions of 60. With CG & Carmel appearing to be fully back in the MIC...I don't see much change on the horizon.

Best of Luck to Coach Patchett!

If I rememeber correctly, when Harbaugh first took the Chargers job he lived in an RV because he was a big fan of Rockford Files.... Rockford Files strikes me as a show Coach Wright might be a fan of

Obviously I think you had a great idea

From an AD's perspective it might be easier to just say one year the HCC is home and the next year MIC is home. That way the AD's know in advance if they have to have a crew booked etc. Easier to balance a the rest of your schedule knowing how many home/aways you'd have in advance. However there is absolutley zero "cool" factor in that....coin toss at least adds some excitement.

The only hiccup is schools that already schedule a MIC or HCC non con opponent in Wk 2. Easy fix is to just make sure going forward you block out week 1 for your HCC or MIC noncon game and play your other noncon vs someone outside of those conferences. Week two would be your noncon game vs a Ft Wayne/Region/etc opponent. Looking back only HCC ZVill and Fishers have multiple noncon games vs MIC. I think this could be worked around. No one would want to play the same team 2 weeks in a row. But I don't think this is an unsurmountable obstacle.

(Was going to post this in the MIC thread but thought it might derail that one) If my math is correct, the HCC and MIC now have equal numbers of members. I would like to propose the following: Week 1 of every season is now the HCC/MIC Showdown. Teams play based on conference standings from the previous season (someone else can figure out how to do the Home/Away part of this....reply with ideas) A hypothetical week one schedule for 2026 (can't really do it accuratley because CG/Car weren't actually in last year so I went of Sagarin, I broke the HCC ties based off head to head) Brownsburg vs Carmel Westifeld vs LN Fishers vs Center Grove HSE vs LC Avon vs Warren FC vs BD Zionsville vs Pike Noblesville vs North Central How's that for a week one of Indiana High School football???? If it helps, could have the schools make some agreement to split the gate revenue. The AD's can smell the $$$$$$$ already!!

😇😁

To say "they left" probably isn't the most accurate way to describe it....

This is probably a Bob question....but I don't think currently they take C students....I "think" a portal transfer has to have something like a 3.0 and a full year of college credits. If I was a coach, I'd be more picky about the character of a portal kid than his exact GPA. Fairly recently I beleive ND transferees had to have mulitple years of credits and the GPA. But I'm not an expert on that. Now...how you quatify "character"??.....who knows. Probably the old, "I know it when I see it".

My point isn't an argument with Bob. But, as he describes very well in his initial post....the goal at ND (going WAAAAAAAY back) it to win the Natty. Which is why they said..."well finals aren't as important as winning the Natty, so lets just go to bowl games if we have to" back in the late 60s. If the goal is a national championship, taking full advantage of the portal will need to become part of that. They have relaxed some things on incoming transfers in recent years. If they would accept kids with 24 credits and a C average, that would open the doors to a MUCH larger selection of potential transferees that could help them win the big trophy. As our old team Dr used to tell us in college....."You know what they call people who get C's in Medical School!?!?!..........Doctors"😇

No argument from me on your post....its lays it all out well. I just don't see a reason for ND to remain in the ACC in any sport if football joins MHKY in the B1G.

The rest of athletics at ND should have joined Men's Hockey in the B1G a long time ago. When we used the "traditional" bowls mechanism it was economically advantageous (no revenue sharing)...when football was only broadcast over national tv networks (National NBC broadcast every homegame)....it was advantageous. Those days are long gone. You can make an argument the lack of revenue sharing is helpful with paying out NIL...but ND doesn't take full advantage of the portal anyway....if they did they'd return to juggernaught status.

I can't look at this and not think of how easy it would be to seed the regionals. All of these schools are making the same drives for regular season games, sometimes more than one .....(you can make an argument about JVille...but I digress).

There is a large area of undeveloped land near the 94/65 interchange....not sure it would be big enough to put a stadium in. This could possibly bring Gary back from the grave. Anyone who says that neighborhood is too bad for a stadium....hasn't spend much time outside a White Sox game

That penalty stopped the game clock....effectivley giving the opponent and extra timeout. Shaw coaches didn't realize this and continued to take knees instead of trying to pick up a 1st down. The kid made a mistake...a huge one. But the loss in on the coaches for mismanaging the clock/timeouts after that penalty. They still had at least 2 downs to get a new set of downs and then be able to knee it out.

I think a version of this is the best possible outcome if Indiana goes down the NIL road. I need @Bobref or someone with actual legal experise to chime in....but is the following a possibility? "While NIL might become LEGAL, can the IHSAA still say that it would preclude eligibillity amongst its member schools (since it is a membership organization). Therefore, some schools (be they public, p/p, charter, or otherwise) could opt to leave the IHSAA and take part in NIL. The rest of the member schools would be making an agreement that NIL is no-go and would make an athlete ineligible" Is that something that would work?

If "sports" is ever divorced from the schools...the kids that need sports the most, will have very little access to it.

Once again.... "The issue isn't the students that P/P or Public schools count....its who the P/P schools NEVER have to count and Public schools ALWAYS have to count."

Its this....or even during games. But again....more worried about eye black and shirts tucked in, than something that is actually being used to gain an advantage.

If 1A were to become smallest 32 (as it should), you need to preclude any p/p from being in that class. *Cue some small school p/p defenders that are afraid they won't be able to yo-yo down into 1A and grab a pair of blue rings every two years.

Outside of Fishers/HSE that have already split…I am not familiar with a single HCC school having serious admin discussions about splitting. The cost to fund “equal” admin and extra curriculum programs is WAY up into 7 figures per year. This is often the reason cited for no split. It is by far more economical to have one really big high school than multiple “pretty big” high schools. And as long as you have a nearby peer of 5000+ …there is even less desire. full disclosure: I am on record as saying the sweet spot for high school size is probably around 2000-2500 kids. This is mainly for academic and quality of life issues. But economically in the current school funding climate….its just not gonna happen.

I'm just saying....its no where near as bad as it used to be.

Its actually more homogeneous than it used to be....20 years ago it was a handful of MIC schools that were at that far top end. Now there are several MIC, HCC, Far north schools all well above 3k and some at or north of 4k. Carmel at 5000+ is the real outlier.

If we ever make 1A the bottom 32.....this reinforces my opinion that it should exclude P/P.