US31

2 hours ago, npcougar15 said:

Penn, Elkhart, Warsaw, Homestead, Carroll, Mishawaka, Goshen, Concord seems like a lot more viable conference than the one above.

New Prairie will NEVER be in a conference with Warsaw or Fort Wayne schools; that's over 2 hours away. And I don't see why a schools like St. Joe or Marian or anybody under 1,000 enrollment would want to be in that conference. 

How likely is Carroll and Homestead able to make their way out of the Fort Wayne bubble?

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

10 hours ago, HoopsCoach said:

Penn and Elkhart needed to either convince the Duneland schools to take them and expand the conference or put together something new with Homestead, Carroll, and maybe Warsaw.  The time to do it would have been with the Elkhart consolidation, but it’s probably too late now.

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. 

14 hours ago, npcougar15 said:

I'd love to see a shake up of the Michiana conferences that looks something like:

NIC: Penn, Warsaw, Goshen, Elkhart, Mishawaka, Adams, Riley, Washington

NLC:  Plymouth, Northridge, Concord, New Prairie, Marian, St. Joe, Northwood, CMA.

New Conference: Bremen, Jimtown, Glenn, Knox, Laville, Tippy Valley, Rochester, Wawasee

 

 

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?

3 hours ago, foxbat said:

Harrison has played Tri-West on its undercard before, so it's not necessarily that far out there.  At the same time, Harrison has also recently had other undercards like Chatard, Cathedral, Roncalli, and Brebeuf too, so there's an interesting trend there ... especially considering LCC was added as the scrimmage opponent last season.

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

15 minutes ago, Bash Riprock said:

My guess is that this stadium can and will be used for other purposes than just soccer.  I am not sure of the need for more office space....But its the total package and utilizing an area of downtown that is frankly an eyesore that makes me feel more positive about the investment.

If it were soccer alone, I would probably lean your way.  

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/

2 hours ago, tango said:

Eh, I don't know, man. I didn't give it a Warren Commission type of analysis, but it looks to me like there was plenty of room for coach to lead his team off the court and stay out of the students. 

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.
 

First time I've seen the video.  I don't know Coach Osborn, have never meet him (I know coaches at both schools in other sports, all good people)  But let me be devil's advocate....I'm gonna try and be the one person to give him some benefit of the doubt from watching the video...

1. Game ends, some CG kids rush the floor.  In my opinion this isn't a really egregious "court storming" as the group more or less just runs out to celebrate with the CG players.  Quite a bit of space between benches and this crowd.  Not near as many people as I assumed based on the way I'd heard it described.
2. Carmel players start to head over to shake hands with a few CG players on other side of scorer's table.  But most CG players are in the celebration near center court.  Carmel coach points for team to go back other way and around to leave.
3. So now Carmel Coach is directing his team to go back around the crowd on their way out.  They have to cross the scorer's table agin to do this and go out other end.  During this time Coach has his back toward the CG celebration and there is space between him and Carmel players who are doing as they are told and heading out.  
4. At about this same time, it appears the CG players are being directed to go "shake hands" with the Carmel team and a line of CG players now starts to move between the exiting Carmel players and the Carmel coach.  Players all look to be exhibiting good sportsmanship here.  Looks like some CG coaches/officials are also trying to stay between this handshake line and the crowd...good for them.
5. Carmel Coach is now kind of on his own, on the CG side of the handshake line, and starts to head towards the end of it to meet up with his team...

Now from that point on, I can't tell from that grainy video what happens. 

But as a coach who has been around a lot of handshake lines...I don't see him "purposefully" storming through the crowd...at least initially.  I think he didn't realize CG players were gonna walk through when/where they did for a handshake and he tried to cut around it as best he could.

Did he do something inappropriate at the end?  I sure can't tell from the video, so I won't say he did or he didn't.  But I think my interpretation is at least a little different than some others....

Flame away if you want....just my 2 cents 

2 hours ago, BDGiant93 said:

John gets the schedules from ADs or SIDs. He waits for them to come in.

And my comment was in jest

56 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

How can a program like this ever be stopped?

 

Not likely....families move across country just to put their elite kids in this program.  USA Diving is also headquartered in Indy so that is an additional incentive.  Ironically it doesn't seem like Carmel had a very good diver this year?

Its not just that they won...they more than doubled the points of 2nd place Fishers.  Carmel won all but 2 or 3 events and had multiple girls in the top 3 in almost all of them...swept at least one.

We always think of football first when we discuss the conference affiliations...but can you blame a Fishers girls swim program that would then have to share a conference meet, sectional, etc with Carmel.  I'm not accusing Carmel of doing ANYTHING inappropriate...its arguably the most successful high school program of any sport of all time!  But looking at it from another school's perspective, I at least understanding the desire to say "no thanks" to Carmel being in your conference.  

If I was doing the schedules on the JH site, I think I might wait it out a little bit before doing the schedules for Carmel and "other" metro indy schools🤪

Didn't read the article.....but curious if there is a large control group of non-NFL brains that are also being screened for CTE?

1 hour ago, StatQueen said:

Hot off the presses! Carmel has dropped CG in EVERY sport!  Starting this Spring.  Apparently not happy about a scuffle after the boys basketball loss this year.  UnReal!  IHSAA should step in.

Is this being reported?

32 minutes ago, BTF said:

I'm actually good with a bunch of kids who can coherently answer a question in the post game interviews. And Freeman did ink twenty 4-star players. Smart kid + 4-star athlete = playoff opportunity/big payout game. I'm not sure Notre Dame is willing to lower their standard to win the whole thing. They still consider themselves an academic university. After all, it is college. 

Don’t assume I think it’s a bad thing at all….but I think it’s hypocritical to claim you are serving both goals.

The "Holy Fathers" (including Swarbrick? Heard all sorts of rumors of whose sets the rules) love to claim that ND, as a program, has everything in place to be a national super power....the truth is they don't really want to be.

Unless the school will allow the coaching staff to recruit the same kids, the same way that Bama, Clemson, OSU, etc are doing.  ND will be the best of the Standfords and Northwesterns.  Kelly got tired of it and had a very successful first year in the SEC and dominated Purdue in the bowl.  My guess is Tommy Rees saw the same thing.  

Not impressed with Freeman, but to be honest...its not a job you can just walk into and be successful given all the things stated above.

Until the recruiting philosophy/requirements/etc change, ND will be what they have been for most of the last quarter century.  Unable (or rather unwilling) to compete with the big boys.  

I say all these things as a lifer ND fan.

What about this question....

Should a school nominate a player they KNOW has no intention of playing in the N/S All-Star game...even if selected? 

In other words, if Johnny Walker is graduating early and going to a big Power 5 school like Ol'Tex, UCC, or State University...who will not allow him to play in the game...should a coaching staff nominate him?

Then I hope this ends to discussion of changing the DPI enforcement?  

7 minutes ago, Indiana Fan said:

I see this as a potential. Who would make up that Southside conference? 

If/When an HCC south pops up...I think there will be some "shuffling" of the deck.  HCC would probably lose a few schools to that new conference.  Some of current/past MIC schools would be absorbed into both.  What remains of the MIC would remain to be seen.

The big "IF" would be if what @temptation says "could" happen...does in fact happen.  If CG and/or Carmel (and Cathedral) end up back in the MIC...then you can throw my predictions out the window.  

3 minutes ago, temptation said:

You referring to Whiteland and CG I assume?  Anyone else?

If you scroll up I posted my best guess as to who might make up a new "HCC" south (I purposely did NOT include any remaining MIC teams).  I did not include Whiteland because I don't think they are there "right now", but if we are thinking a few years down the road you could add them to that list.

...again, I have no real inside information.

Some version of the MIC may still exist along with two.  But with the growth of some of the southside schools to match up with HCC size schools, I think you're gonna a see an HCC like conference pop up on the "south" side.

15 minutes ago, temptation said:

Hence the reason they were labeled as "longshots."  The MIC is interested in them more so than the other way around.

I would give Avon/BB to the MIC about a 5% chance and that would require some of these other additions to happen first.  What "could" have a better chance of happening is a if Carmel/CG/Cathedral end up trying to form a "new" conference.  

I hope that doesn't happen...Avon/BB are great HCC schools across many sports.

I do feel like we will eventually head towards a "Northside" metro super conference (aka HCC), and a "Southside" metro super conference (name TBD).  I don't think the geography will be perfect north/south, but something that more or less divides the big metro area schools into two approx 8-10 school conferences.

I had a roommate that met a smoking hot chick in BRipple back in the late 90s.  They dated for a while, but when it became apparent she was also off the charts crazy...he dumped her. 

Fast forward 6 months, we bump into her at Rock Lobster.  They hook up....

My roommate "She's got a new job, now."  "She really doesn't go to bars that much anymore."  "Guys, she's not really that Crazy".  Within two weeks they were back together again. 

(Narrator in Morgan Freeman voice:  "She was, in fact, still crazy.")

I have no idea why I would be sharing that anecdote on this particular thread.🤪

I'm not sure if I made the comment on another thread or not.  I would not have been surprised to see a Carmel/CG/Avon/BB/FC/SP/DC/CN conference within the next few years.

Personally like BB and Avon in the HCC.  If they are peeled off HCC, I could see NC and/or Carmel being added.  Maybe just one, leaving a space for a future 3rd HSE school?

I have no insider info other than just conversation with other conference coaches that often don't know anymore than I do.

BB & Avon is my guess for longshot package