foxbat

Definitely sounds like a rebuilding year.

LCC in 2009? Graduated 18 seniors and went 15-0 the next season. Also, 2010 they graduated 13 seniors and went 15-0 the following season.

In think that ties in to @Impartial_Observer's statement above about better technique. I would hope that programs that use them just don't hand them out as "magic dust" and drive home the importance of technique as well as other safety tools.

Not sure I'd have LCC over Andrean and Luers this early.

Feels strange not seeing Pioneer in a Top 12 ranking for 1A.

Agree with this! Teaching kids how to reduce or take the head out of tackling certainly helps. It's not 100%, but it goes a long way from the head being the tip of the spear for tackling back in the day when I was coming up.

Realistically? From similar population? About 50% of what you already have on your team across all of the question areas. If I'm a coach and I've got 20 impact players and you tell me I can have another 10; I'll take them. If I have 30 impact players and you tell me I can have another 15; I'll take them. That gets me more depth as well as, statistically, the ability to improve on what I already have unless somehow or another I have already topped out at the fastest, strongest, smartest, quickest, most agile, kids in that district. It also gives me more mixes to work with. A detriment though to large schools is that, sometimes, even above-average players don't play on the team because of the shared time aspect or even second-string aspect. There are, and anyone who has coached knows this, kids that will not even come out for a team if there 1) isn't the probability that they will start and/or 2) the potential that they will have to share time with another talented person. We see it in college where kids transfer, especially now with the portal ... in high school, they sometimes just opt for another sport where they know they will start although they sometimes transfer albeit "for academic reasons." This also can have impact on big school pipelines too, depending on how many pipelines flow into that school. I'm interested in seeing how this plays out as Jeff and Harrison even out in enrollment and both end up 6A. Jeff has a single junior high, Tecumseh, that feeds the high school whereas Harrison has three middle schools, Klondkie, Battleground, and east Tipp, that feed it.

If I had 2,000 boys to choose from and created a pretty good team and then someone else said, "Hey, I've got another 1,000 boys that look like the 2,000-boy population you just created your team from," I'm pretty sure I would look through the additional 1,000 as opposed to waiving them off. Realistically, if someone said, "I've got another 20 boys," I'd probably waive it off as not necessarily worth the time/payoff, but for an additional 1,000, even if just 15% were interested in being part of the football team, the likelihood of improving on the original team from the 2,000-boy population is decent.

For small schools, if you are including Linton, Pioneer, and Lutheran, then LCC should be in that mix too. In last 10 seasons: State titles: 2 in 1A ... over Lutheran and Linton State appearances: 2 in 1A Regionals: 4 ... 3 in 1A and 1 in 2A Sectionals: 7 ... 4 in 1A and 3 in 2A And this is all since the four-peat state run in 1A, 2009-2012, which would tack on an additional 4 state titles, 4 appearances, 4 more regionals, and four more sectional titles.

I'm assuming that's more fans than players/coaches. While CG had an outstanding season last year, culminating in a blue ring, it would seem that the gaps in wins is getting noticeably tighter. In 2021, CG beat FC 35-7 in the sectional game. This past season, it was just 14-10 in sectional. A differential drop of over three TDs. In 2021, WC got dropped 38-14. That dropped to just 17-8 and 42-32 in regionals. A reduction of two TD differential in both games. In 2021, the divide with Carmel was almost four TDs. That dropped to a four-point differential in 2022. For BD, in 2021, it was over a three-TD differential and over a five-TD differential in semi-state. In 2022, that differential dropped to a single point. Granted, it's just a single-season comparison, albeit the most recent, but that seems like a lot of teams getting better.

All done. Thanks for all you guys do!

Unfortunately, more and more kids may be drawn to the idea that, they may never see a college field, but there's still options for exposure in other areas. While there's certainly the "next step" for talented players in college, realistically that number is limited. On the other hand, other outlets for "noticed" people, who have some talent but not enough for post high school, are growing ... and not in a good way. Need look no further than the "Cash me outside, how bow dah" girl who ended up with millions for being a brat. The image of being the "bad boy" or "the assassin" or "the thug" seems to have niche appeal in social media even if athletics can't be taken to that next level.

Those are the only three that I can think of. LCC probably came closest of those that didn't; dropping a 17-14 semi-state game on the road to eventual 2A champ RCHS back in 2014.

I would agree with this. Plainfield played some nice heads-up ball as the season progressed. They play best when they keep things tight to the end. If they keep it tight, they seem to be able to wait teams out to make a mistake at the end and then capitalize on it. Kind of like boxers taking it to the scorecards and winning it in the last two rounds.

This hasn't been all that much of an issue. Cathedral's pretty much the only program that moved up a class and kept someone from that new class from winning in their regular class level ... that would be in 5A. Also, there are teams that moved up via SF that ended up in the new class by enrollment anyway. Linton and Scecina both ended up in 2A by SF and both remain there because of enrollment. 1A Adams Central may well end up being SF'd, but realistically they are likely to hit enrollment to go to 2A at the same time. Lutheran would likely be the only 1A school to head to 2A that could, potentially, keep someone in 2A from winning that class. Chatard could also be in that same position, but last time they were in 4A, IHSAA put them up against Roncalli, so that pretty much made sure that Chatard wasn't going to keep a regular 4A school from taking 4A. You can certainly argue that Pioneer and LCC, both of whom were SF'd might have won 1A more if they hadn't been SF'd, but also realistically, while LCC has won a couple of state championships in 1A after having returned from 2A, they were also dropped four of six seasons in 1A as well by teams that ended up at LOS in 1A ... and only one of those was close as the rest were losses by four or more TDs including a 70-7 drumming at the hands of Pioneer and 42-9 at the hands of South Adams. Similarly, Pioneer's return to 1A was pretty anti-climatic with a 2-8 season record and an unceremonious first round bounce from the tourney by Triton 42-6.

And you said it to his [virtual] face too!

Could the IHSAA basically say that, should schools decide to form a co-op, said co-op is an all-sports co-op? That is, they would perform as a co-op across all sports instead of just football or just baseball? That would address that concern, although it would also likely have most schools decide if it's all or none, they'll take none.

Rumor has it that 1A Faith Christian in Lafayette, will finally start playing football, but will be playing 8-man ball. They've been around for about 25 years and were admitted into IHSAA about a decade or so ago, but never had football at the school until now.

Didn't HHC basically oust LCC? If not officially, then they were certainly helpful and showed up for the packing party when LCC departed for the HC.

Do we go nine again, or do we add another? If we add another, who: Is a good fit? Who is realistic? I would assume that bringing in another 3A/4A team helps in making things a bit more competitive for Western ... along with the recent addition of Logansport. Other than maybe Pioneer, I don't see anything in 1A to consider. Anything in 2A/3A, especially with the Sagamore Conference shakeup, make any sense? Tri-West perhaps? I'd see Lebanon as more of a "fit" maybe linking up with Harrison/McCutcheon if they form a new league, but Lebanon could be an interesting addition of strength on the upper-end of the HC compared to the departures. Might go a decent way to making sure that Western doesn't get cold feet.

It looks like West Lafayette has snagged TippValley to fill in their schedule for that opening too.

I didn't want to toss WeBo under the bus like that. 😃 Seriously, when SF was first being considered, I thought the same thing about the yo-yoing; especially in 1A. Part of that was also, when it was first implemented, it took four points to stay up instead of two points, which I though for sure would set up a situation of roughly three or four teams taking turns wearing the crown. That hasn't ended up materializing; especially with the two-point modification. That kept Pioneer up in 2A instead of letting them back down ... and keep in mind that had they returned to 1A it would have been on the heals of picking up a regional title in 2A the year before over Andrean. For the most part, there really hasn't been any yo-yoing of 1A teams. Note that LCC won a sectional in 2A last season, so another sectional win and they stay. Although it's been about a decade since the first teams were SF'd, we're still still very young in the process. We've only had a about five cycles and, in that time we've also had some issues with having to modify the stay-up points, so we've really only had four cycles and one of them was the wonky COVID cycle. We don't have as many data points as it seems like we might have at this point, but I think SF is doing a decent enough job at this point, even if it's not at 100% of what it was expected/hoped to do. I'd say it's a step in the right direction and better than where we were. As for the p/p auto bump, in 1A, the only really competitive school at this point is Lutheran that's there. SF is about to take care of them. I also suspect that they will be able to pick up two points in 2A barring getting a 2A sectional of death like the 3A sectional of death or the infinite wisdom of putting Chjatard and Roncalli in the same sectional when Chatard bumped up to 4A. Enrollment will end up taking care of Covenant Christian and Park Tudor most likely the next time around, so it's likely to be a fairly moot point in the next year or so.

Pioneer saw LOS three times in three years, and four in five, before being bumped as well. The last three visits were: lost the first, then the new cycle came, then won two back-to-back. Matter of fact, if you look at their time before going up, you realize there may need to be something beyond just a two-year window and simple cutoffs. 2013 - Sectional champ 2014 - State runner-up 2015 - Sectional champ 2016 - State runner-up 2017 - State champ 2018 - State champ It's not Sheridan and LCC four-peat visits to LOS, but it's definitely close in the neighborhood ... about a couple of doors down.

The only reason that LCC moved back down was due to a fault in the original implementation of SF which required four points to stay up as opposed to two points. Had two points been in place like it is now, LCC would have remained in 2A. Yes, they are CURRENTLY in that SF debate, but at the time of the SF decision, they weren't and shouldn't have been. You can also make a similar argument for Pioneer, until you can't. Pioneer was as much a dominant force in 1A as LCC and I would argue probably even more so for a long time. Pioneer and LCC tended to finish #1 and #2 almost every other season for maybe the better part of a decade; typically ending each others' seasons. It was a shame they were in the same regional/sectional most of the time. When LCC returned to 1A in 2015, Pioneer turned around and smacked them around ... putting an exclamation point on it with a 70-7 on LCC's HOME FIELD. This, incidentally is that same LCC program post 2A that you mentioned. In that run up to being SF'd to 2A, Pioneer appears at LOS three seasons in a row and putting the icing on the cake outscoring their opponents in post season 364-14 including that 70-7 beatdown of the former 2A and state champ Knights. Pioneer then enters 2A and pulls a similar move to LCC's first run in 2A including knocking off 2A p/p Andrean and picking up a regional. Again, the difference is that Pioneer picks up 2 points after the IHSAA changes the rule, otherwis they'd still be in 2A too ... but then they end up back down in 1A. Their run up to 2A and their first two years in 2A look similar to LCC's. Incidentally, LCC teams, while strong in general, look nothing like the teams that were in that 4-peat period. LCC is one of the few teams to be SF'd by NOT getting to LOS in the year before they went up. Ask 1A South Adams just how "worrisome" 1A LCC was as they were wishing them well on the way out of 2A with a 42-9 victory over LCC.

When you say "plays" are you meaning they are competitive or participates? If participation, then there are certainly some others like Traders Point ... for competitive it likely depends on what we are putting as a definition of competitive vs. dominant vs. punching above weight class. The only one in 1A that's been close to LOS without buying a ticket, outside of Lutheran, now that LCC's been SF'd, is Covenant Christian. For comparisons in 1A: Traders Point's history in IHSAA, since 2018, consists of no titles. Eliminated in the years by South Putnam, LCC, Tri-County, Carroll, and Park Tudor. Covenant Christian's history, since 2015, consists of a state championship in 2020. Outside of that, bounced in sectionals by Riverton Parke, North Vermission, South Putnam, Traders Point, and Lutheran ... rather unceremoniously this last season 56-0. Oldenberg Academy's history since 2015, consists of no titles. Bounced by North Decatur, West Washington, Tri, Hagerstown, and Milan. In don't think they compete anymore in football. Indiana Deaf ... speaking of teams that "don't have to take everyone" ... history since 1985, consists of no titles. Park Tudor's history, since 1985, consists of three sectional titles in 2002, 2005, 2022.