foxbat

2021 was more disappointing for Harrison than the 2020 season vs. Zionsville. Harrison is still on a rise as a program and still is feeling out the start/stops and sputters that often hit a team as they make that transition. My boys have only been on the inside of the Harrison programs for about the last four years or so, so my understanding of the inner-workings is somewhat limited. From what I've seen, however, the program is in an ascendancy and should see, hopefully, increased productivity in the coming years. I don't know that Harrison is better equipped to take out Decatur Central ... I'm not very familiar with DC. What I have seen with the Harrison program in just the last few years, from a behind the scenes perspective, is increased competition at the undercard levels in building the pipeline. A couple of seasons ago, Harrison had the largest freshman football class in the history of the school. That team closed the gap with Westfield to a TD. Last season, that freshman team as JV squad, forced Westfield to come from behind and kick a 40+yard field goal to escape with a 1-point win. Historically, those games were never anywhere close with Westfield being heavily dominant. I was looking forward to the Harrison-Westfield matchup season this year as a measuring stick to see if that idea of undercard moving through the pipeline pays dividends or not; however, Westfield won't have Harrison this upcoming season as they are going in a different direction facing off against Lawrence Central and New Pal while Harrison will faceoff against Plainfield and down-the-road foe West Lafayette. In the past couple of seasons, Harrison's undercards have played a modified schedule rather than the NCC undercards. Harrison's freshman squad played a couple of games against JV squads in the NCC rather than freshman counterparts and also played non-NCC when varsity played NCC. Harrison's JV squad did similar a couple of times, since the NCC counterpart was playing Harrison's freshman squad, and played non-NCC competition like Chatard. Where all of that will take Harrison is still to be seen. Realize that it was just about a decade ago that Harrison had three back-to-back 0-10 seasons, so Harrison is still very much in a building part of the program. Nonetheless, there's a lot of excitement as to where the program is and where it can get to. The biggest downfall in all of this for Harrison, at least from where I see it, is that they are making good strides and doing well, but they are going to get thrust up into 6A before they likely get the chance to "stabilize" the growth that they've been seeing. It is what it is though and you take the hands that you are dealt and move forward from there. Hopefully the buy-in and momentum remains ... a good showing in 5A these next couple of seasons could go a long way feeding that fire.

It's about three years late and they got the benefit of a pair of visits to LOS in the interim. Harrison's in the same boat in that they have a two-year two-minute warning that 6A is coming and a couple of seasons to do what they are going to do in 5A before heading up to a new bag in 6A.

This will also become even more prevalent as resources become tighter. With strained resources, students outside of +/- 1 standard deviation start to suffer more. As you mentioned, in some of the smaller schools, it's not even the +/- 1 standard deviation that get the resources. I recall a family of a kid that I coached many years back that ended up transferring to a 5A school because, as his sister with special needs got to school age, the family needed to be somewhere that could provide those services. I know another family in town where their kids are split between the local p/p and the public schools because one of their kids is gifted and talented and that academic program was not available at the p/p when he started in the program as an elementary school kid. These are situations where it pretty much either existed or didn't, but as you point out, there can certainly be a problem where it's not 0/1 but somewhere in between and spread out too much ... not quite 0, but much farther away from 1.

Twin Lakes JV baseball has played Harrison ... Western plays baseball both JV and varsity against Harrison. My son says that Western has a pretty decent baseball team when they play them.

West Lafayette has already scheduled Jeff in the past and also plays McCutcheon regularly. They are scheduled to play Harrison this year. They also play Western fairly regularly as well ... two seasons on, two seasons off. Outside of Lebanon, I'm not sure that the proposed new league give WL any more than a greater opportunity for injuries which could derail a season. Folks claim that West Lafayette needs to "toughen up" to make a deeper run, but realize that, with the exception of 2020, WL tends to drop their season to the eventual north representative at LOS and their last seven seasons have resulted in a blue ring or were ended by a p/p: 2021 - Lost 24-14 to state runner up Brebeuf 2020 - Anomaly season losing to Guerin 20-18 2019 - Lost to state champ Chatard 42-14 who beat Heritage Hill 34-3 at LOS 2018 - Won state 2017 - Lost 13-10 to state runner up Brebuef 2016 - Lost to state champ Concordia, 62-27, who beat Lawrenceburg 56-14 at LOS 2015 - State runner up losing to Chatard 31-7

Normally I would, but I was thinking that my wife would have posted it before me if she had seen it first, so I didn't feel as guilty. Matter of fact, I know a few guys on this site and their wives and their wives would have beaten them to the punch as well.

If you're married, you're already jinxed. 😀

They run this quite well; especially in 1A matchups.

So what you are REALLY saying is that you made an off-hand comment and dragged females into a fight that they weren't really part of. There was NO LOGIC at all in including females as part of the post. If your argument is that some admins don't value sports like others do, then we are in agreement. If you want to either because of misogyny or, using your own words, being "witty and stupid and a smartass" or just plain old mistake and slip pf the tongue included females, then we are not in agreement. I think that most folks that SERIOUSLY follow sports and know real sports fans will show you a large number of RABID fans both male and female. The moms of the kids that I've coached over two decades of VOLUNTEER activity have been some of the biggest backers of football that I have ever known and have been to bat doing the heavy lifting often to make things happen; especially when the spotlight ISN'T on them. As for the schools I represent, your guess would be completely wrong ... but then again, more spaghetti for the pot apparently.

I will ask, "What does female/woman/XX/etc. have to do with bad football?" ... whether in the future or present?

Certainly true, although there are many of them that just are and chose to remain ... however, you tossed in women into that mix as a cause.

So now we're blaming women for bad football? Looks like a new batch of spaghetti's ready to get flung at a wall.

I'm just curious if the issue is Cathedral is actually more heterogeneous than the Roncallis and Chatards. Most folks see Cathedral as a Catholic school, but it's more of a private school with a Catholic bent. I'm not sure of the demographics of the school, but diocesan schools tend to be much more homogenous. I know Brebeuf isn't a diocesan school, but I suspect it's much more Catholic than Cathedral. Similarly Chatard, LCC, Guerin, and Roncalli. That may well then have more of an SES impact across p/ps. You find LOTS of Catholics at those diocesan schools that are scraping by to send their kids to those schools because of the Catholic education whereas I wonder if there's an SES difference between Cathedral and it's Catholic counterparts. Again, I'm not sure if that's something at play or not. Is there any info, either data-driven or anecdotal that speaks to the Catholic/non-Catholic mix at Cathedral vs. it's Catholic counterparts?

This isn't even hitting at the trickle-down effect of youth sports. Most weekly games for travel and most rec are down to a single ump and even tournament play is starting to see single umps in the field for pool play and even some of the early morning games on bracket play.

This seems to speak to the idea that competitive balance for the state's football may not be the best answer for individual schools/programs and thus, contraction may actually hurt schools where the idea is not necessarily to win sectionals, but instead to provide enough funding to support their other sports.