foxbat

Harrison leads Plainfield 14 - 0 with 1:32 left in Q2.

Harrison @ Plainfield has been moved to 8:00 pm.

Given stories I've heard, "stalker" might be a more apropos term.

Down in the Dallas area, actually Greenville, just a few weeks ago for a funeral. Was around 103 with heat-index in the 115 range. Absolutely brutal in a black suit. Luckily, it was "just like old times" ... the heat, not the funeral. At least the grave site was next to an oak tree and the funeral home handed out water. When I got to Indiana, back in 2001, we didn't have DST. The two time zone thing was a shock though especially when chaperoning a field trip to Fair Oaks and finding out that driving north for less than an hour meant that you arrived at your destination an hour before they opened.

Select "Clubs" from the sub-menu, then you can find it there. ... might have to use the link to get to it the first time and join.

Might want to post these over in the pick 'em thread for HC to make life easier on @CoachDurham:

https://gridirondigest.net/forum/24-oob-forum/

Wonder if it'd be something like Harrison and McCutcheon joining up with THN/THS and perhaps toss in a couple of others like West Lafayette and Lebanon. Harrison had THS on the schedule for a couple of years along with Westfield before trading for West Lafayette and Plainfield. Wouldn't be ideal for the bigger schools, but it's not like the NCC was doing all that much for Harrison anyway ... outside of Jeff. Could probably still schedule Jeff as an out-of-conference team. Maybe look at playing one or more of the Catholic schools too as out-of-conference. Chatard has played Harrison on its undercards for a few years. They could replace Tech on their schedule with Harrison. Maybe add in Brebeuf who could replace Tri-West or Marian with Harrison. Brebeuf already plays THN and THS and has also played Harrison on undercards. Of course, you'd have to convince WL to bolt the HC, but stranger things have happened ... and West Lafayette already plays McCutcheon and Harrison on their out-of-conference schedule. Again, not a great solution for Harrison/McCutcheon, but right now they are without a conference and if THN/THS are also out looking, the Island of Misfit Toys might end up being better than possibly getting split or staying independent for several years.

2 Point Games Benton Central @ Seeger Eastern @ Northwestern Elwood @ Tipton Central Catholic @ Guerin McCutcheon @ West Lafayette North Montgomery @ Hamilton Heights Rensselaer @ North Newton Twin Lakes @ Delphi Western Boone @ Western Scecina @ Speedway

On the Harrison side, I'd probably rate the last three teams as: 2022 slightly over 2021, with 2020 firmly in 3rd. With it just being the first game, as a caveat, I'd rank the 2023 team somewhere around just above the 2020 squad to just a tad under the 2021 team. That may well change as the season goes on. Harrison's only played WL twice in the last two decades, 2023 and 2004, and split a pair with them. Last season's game with WL was certainly a disappointment for Harrison; especially getting shutout in the second half at LOS. I know that Harrison took cr*p for that in the off-season. I'd, with the caveat of just a game under their belt, completely agree with you about the WL squad. There used to be an overabundance of talent in that district, even without the likes of the Karlaftis kids. I think the recent growth of Harrison's football program might have some tangential impact on that. Don't get me wrong though ... against most other 3A programs they are still on the upper-end of talent availability. If I recall correctly, for a while, even with open enrollment in Indiana, WL was a closed district. That isn't the case anymore.

Completely agree seeing it on paper and knowing what the traditional programs have looked like. I would make that exact same call if I hadn't seen it with my eyes. I made a post over in the Hoosier Conference thread where I give a little more insight on what caught my eye regarding the Harrison-West Lafayette game albeit focusing more on West Lafayette's play. Historically, West Lafayette isn't a team that suffers due to graduation. They may change their style of how they attack you, but it usually doesn't seem to have an impact on their overall effectiveness. With the caveat that this could certainly be a situation of a bad night or just not getting all of the cobwebs dusted off for first game, this just didn't look/feel like "our fathers' West Lafayette." At the same time, this Raider team played aggressive and inspired ball which looked so much different, for the better, than their performance in their scrimmage against LCC, so it's hard to make a definitive call just yet given the various moving parts. I'm really hoping that Harrison maintains this performance and will be quite happy, after a couple more data points, to see then prowling around the state Top 20.

I'm holding out at least another week before I'd likely put Harrison in Top 20 for the state just yet. Really good first game for the Raiders, but it was 200% different from the scrimmage performance against LCC and West Lafayette did not look like their normal selves on Friday. Will get a second set of data points this Friday and will have a better feel for whether LCC is really that good, Harrison is really that good, West Lafayette really is suffering from departure of O-line, or some mixture. LCC gets 3A Guerin this Friday on the road, West Lafayette gets 5A McCutcheon at home, and Harrison gets Plainfield, who knocked them out of post season last year, on the road. Good set of test data points for all three early in the season.

Harrison - West Lafayette game was fairly uneventful with refs not getting a whole bunch of notice ... which I would suspect is kind of the way that you want it. Only once there was an issue where the crowd was calling loudly for the refs to make a call, but it was one of those underneath passes where there are about three receivers out in front of the guy that catches it and the receivers then become blockers. The one blocker had a pretty nifty hold technique where he had one arm up high like he was blocking and the other one doing a magic trick where it disappeared up under the defender's breastplate and latched on to the jersey ... the upfield ref couldn't see it because of the upfield blockers and the sideline ref's view was blocked by the blocker's body as the play progressed up the sideline. He only did it once, so it wasn't like the refs were always missing it.

Halfway there already ... of course, the path gets steeper quickly in the next three weeks.

Certainly agree that there's a size differential, but size has rarely been an issue for WL; especially recently. Against bigger schools, 5A and above, WL is 10 out of 14 in the last 10 years before this one. Of those four losses, the last ones before last night were a a 27-16 loss in 2020 and a 2019 74-66 loss. Of the remaining three, one was an overtime loss 35-28 in 2016, and a 45-37 loss in 2014. Toss in 4A Western and out-of-state Crete-Monee and the additional impact is an additional six wins and one loss against schools in higher classes bringing that higher enrollment record to 16-5 in the last decade. I'm in complete agreement with you on the lack of composure aspect and even mentioned it to my wife during the game and my son after the game. That just isn't typically seen exhibited by the team, but usually perhaps by a single player. It was also noticeable that the was not just an after-the-play kind of thing, but that it impacted the outcome of subsequent plays ... typically to the detriment. West Lafayette did look smaller on the line than I've seen before and what I saw missing this game was the traditional heavy hitter type backs that West Lafayette has used in the past to tighten up defenses which then allowed their passing game to slice-and-dice defenses. Guys like Mullis, although he was a QB later on, Blankman, Hood, Rolle, Woodard and the young man whose name escapes me right now that was the tandem back with Woodard although he was more lightning to Woodard's thunder. It seemed like a hard hitting running game was missing for WL most of the game. While the first half was pretty close, I think the difference that I saw was in the first half, Harrison was looking for that inside run ability and played the defense overly-cautious looking for that and that allowed a little outside stuff and short passes on the sidelines. In the second half, it looked like Harrison had made the determination that the heavy-hitting run game wasn't there and loosened up the defense a bit and that then played havoc with WL's pass reads. By the end of the game, the main passing play that I saw that was mostly effective was that little pass play to the outside shoulders of the inside LBs and, every once in a while, that fourth read sideline flair out when the deep patterns were shutoff. That loosened defense for Harrison basically ended up taking away that designed sideline down-and-out which was giving West Lafayette's offense some life in the first half.

True, but West Lafayette always loses players from year to year, but the dropoff I saw last night was noticeable ... especially on offense. Harrison probably had at least three or four times or more where they denied WL a fourth down conversion of three or less yards. They also limited WL to zero points in the first half. Harrison converted two turnovers into points and made WL lose their cool on a couple of occasions that led to points as well. Even Harrison's 2nd string put up points. WL only mustered 85 yards rushing and only 111 in the air. Had at least two personal foul that looked like they came from frustration after big plays and a defensive encroachment penalty that gave Harrison new life in their own territory. By far, the night belonged to Harrison on "ooooh" kinds of hits both on offensive plays and special teams. That typically doesn't happen to WL until they get to the likes of Brebeuf. Given what I saw in the LCC-Harrison scrimmage and what I saw from WL last night, albeit I'll certainly conceded that it might have been an anomaly, the LCC-WL game will be well-worth attending if you don't have folks don't have any home team plans.

From just a couple of games last night in this area, the 3A rankings should shake up although they likely won't. 5A Harrison, after a slow first half offensively, thoroughly ended up mauling West Lafayette 42-6. Might contribute that to a class difference, but last season WL beat Harrison 27-14, pitching a shutout in the second half at LOS and, for the past decade most likely would have been the favorite or even odds against the Raiders. While Harrison only put up a pair of field goals in the first half, that was more than enough given that the defense had WL's number all night. West Lafayette was only able to muster 85 yards rushing for the night and just crested 100 yards passing by the end of the game. In another thread someone mentioned that West Lafayette lost a lot of players, but WL always loses a lot of players every season and I haven't seen this kind of dropoff. Based on last night's game, which certainly can be an anomaly as a single data point, I'm thinking the IFD #4 ranking is too high. Guerin beat 5A McCutcheon 18-10 last night in an away game. I didn't see the game, but last year the score was 45-21. Granted, for the last five years, McCutcheon has played Guerin tight, even managing a win back in OT back in 2018. Given that McCutcheon finished 3-8 last season ... with their three wins coming against Muncie Central, Indianapolis Tech, and Marion who went a combined 5-25 with Muncie accounting for 4 of the 5 wins ... it makes the IFD #6 rating seems high until more data comes in based on Guerin escaping Lafayette with a win.

Has anyone seen an LCC-Seeger score? If LCC plays like last week's scrimmage and West Lafayette looks like they did tonight against Harrison, it's going to come down to that game for the HC West. Don't know if West Lafayette had lots of injuries or sick players or a long bus ride over to Harrison, but they look very different from previous years. Harrison defense did a nice job of keeping their offense off-balance and kept frustrating them. Big stops when WL was in Harrison territory, big takeaways in the second half that led to points. Offense did a nice job of pounding away ... a lot more running this game vs. last year's, but just enough passing when the secondary was staring into the backfield and leaning forward.

If Harrison plays like they did tonight, should be a really good game next week when they visit Plainfield.

Ok, one more exclamation point. 42-6 Raiders with 57 seconds left. Running clock. Final 42-6.

Harrison puts an exclamation point on this one with another TD. 35-6 lead with 8:45 left. Harrison with great kick coverage and West Lafayette with a personal foul sets them up to start deep at their own 8.

West Lafayette puts together a short drive for a TD after Harrison kicks off from 25 after unsportsmanlike penalty on previous TD. PAT fails. Raiders lead 28-6.

Harrison with a pick and followed with a 38-yard TD pass. Leads WL 28-0. 11:28 left in game.

Harrison scores. 21-0 over WL with 11:57 left in game.

Harrison 14 - West Lafayette 0. Harrison 1st and goal at the 1 end of 3Q. West Lafayette jump on 4th and 3 followed with personal foul contributed to drive.