foxbat

Calpreps says that Logansport would have dropped games last season to Heights, WL, and LCC. Would have only been an 8-point favorite over RCHS and a 2-point winner over Cass. As for pride, if Harrison and McCutcheon have to take the boot, the only thing good about the proposed league above, outside of having one, is the addition of West Lafayette ... and McCutcheon and Harrison already have WL on the non-con schedule. Realistically, as bad as it seems getting booted from a conference, I think Harrison, as well as Jeff and maybe McCutcheon, weren't doing themselves any good for competition staying in the NCC.

Supposedly it was enrollment gap, geography, and competitive imbalance. Realistically two of those make no sense at all as Jeff is situated between Harrison and McCutcheon geographically and Jeff is currently larger than both McCutcheon and Harrison. Competitive imbalance because Harrison wins a lot of country club sports like tennis and wins the NCC all sports titles, but when it comes to the mainstream sports there's little dominance by Harrison that also doesn't show up in the Jeff history too. See post below for more details, at least through 2020, on the competitive balance claim ... especially taking into account that Jeff was one of the schools voting out Harrison. In essence Jeff is saying in that vote that 1) they can't compete with Harrison or 2) they want to have the inside track to easy football victories again ... because they sure can't be saying that Harrison and McCutcheon are too far away and that Harrison and McCutcheon are too big.

Benton Central?

Seems kind of weird. Why would Logansport vote Harrison and McCutcheon out of the NCC and then decide to jump ship? Could have abstained in the voting unless they are just opportunistic and decided to strike while the Cass iron was hot. Guess Harrison will get a chance to ask them first-hand on October 6.

@Coach Nowlin on the third hole.

I have mixed feelings on it. Growing up in Texas, we didn't have a say and district was the lay of the land ... never really thought much of it. The rivalries were typically based on who you saw on a regular basis as opposed to more organic rivalries. Of course, there were always the sibling rivalry rivalries where you faced off against the other schools in your school district because the football districts were based on size/geography so you tended to end up playing your brother a lot. My old school district in Texas had grown so big that the football district, up until just recently, was comprised of all of the schools from our school district ... all in the equivalent of 6A. And here in Indiana we think the SAC looks inbred from a regular-season perspective. In New Orleans we had districts too, but because the public and private schools were split, it seemed more like a Catholic conference ... usually with a local public school tossed in at the start of the season. Moving up here to Indiana, I underwent a couple of transformations in that 1) I really learned to love small-school ball and 2) I was introduced to, and enjoy, the idea of conferences ... especially the backstories and histories. I do agree, if there was a move to districts, I think there would eventually be a qualifying component to the tourney that would likely follow.

Would likely be the end of conferences as we know it. Would lay open the path to districts.

Could always hope that they and LCC both advance in 2A and do a repeat of the 2015 LOS thing.

I don't know if it's actually been done with that type of class gap, but I recall hearing a story where a program asked if their varsity players could play in the JV matchup game against a same class opponent as their varsity was off that week.

Is it the Wolfhound? Lord, I apologize for that there.

That covers four games in Hoosier East of Tipton, Northwestern, Heights, and Western plus one that listed for Hoosier West for West Lafayette. Typically there are two crossover games in the regular season, but I don't see the second West opponent listed on Harrell's. It's not optimal at the end of the season, but Center Grove's looking for a Week 7 opponent and West Lafayette was scheduled to play Cass in Week 7. Only other options for WL, currently, would be Pike and East Chicago Central. Prett much a 6-one-way, half-dozen-the-other kind of kind of decision.

Or perhaps transformation. The way that conferences are going nowadays, it's not about attracting folks, but kicking folks out. Perhaps one of three alternate realities on the table: Status quo and look for replacement - Maybe Lebanon to join? Eventual folding - Sheridan left, although they were swapped out for LCC. Delphi left. Now Cass is leaving. On the horizon, perhaps BC? Although they tend to do better in basketball. Northwestern? West Lafayette teaming up with Harrison/McCutcheon to form a new league with maybe Lebanon? On a stretch LCC leaving with WL to join with fellow Lafayette folks to form the LL+L conference ... League Lafayette + Lebanon? Kicking members out - In light of activities in a couple of other conferences first two on the chopping block would be LCC and West Lafayette.

I'm pretty sure that CG would prefer to be playing in-state, but probably not at the expense of playing an under-.500 2A team.

I wasn't going to pick on the Wolfhound ... he has less hair than some of the guys in that team picture.

Looks like that guy has a brother/twin. Look at the guy on the second row in the middle ... the one that looks like Ace Ventura.

West Lafayette leaving to join Harrison and McCutcheon and a couple of draft picks to be named later?

New conference. Don't know if that plays into it or not.

Could be Rodney Dangerfield too.

Deserving guy who has been an outstanding representative for his school and conference. Also been a supporter of GID as well. Pow!

Might also be quite embarrassing if your varsity gets running-clocked by your JV. Interesting logic program ... who would JV put in in the second half for that game?

Given that, under current conditions, the season actually has no real impact on the post-season, outside of nine weeks of "simulated playoff football," and that includes no impact, in addition to plain old qualification, to even the issues of seeding, byes, locations, etc., it frankly would seem that who one plays in the season before post-season doesn't really matter ... outside of the general idea of "getting ready" for post season. Now, if we got to seeding or qualification, etc. then there may be an argument to be entertained, but that's not very likely to happen as those ping pong balls have a half-life of around 50 years or so.

That's kind of my thought on this. It's not like CG ran away from or gamed the system. On the other side of the coin, folks would be flipping their wigs if, to avoid having to find stout out-of-state competition, CG loaded their schedule with a bunch of in-state 2A/3A schools with an open week of play and maybe a promise of the gates. That doesn't help anyone. If that's going to be a rule, then the IHSAA needs to step in, decommission all of the current conferences, and go to districts with assigned membership. I'm sure that'll go over like a lead balloon.

Then the move to vote out Harrison and McCutcheon makes no sense as Harrison has never won an NCC basketball title, much less an IHSAA title and McCutcheon has won NCC twice. Men's basketball had nothing to do with the ouster ... especially if the premise is that Harrison was the intended victim and McCutcheon was a drive-by casualty.

I'm not so sure, outside of the general scheduling headache, that Harrison wouldn't have eventually been driven to look for some alternative to the NCC ... at least for football. Even with Large Division setups, Harrison's not getting ready for 6A play with the East Region crowd and, potentially, even part of the West Region. Kokomo and McCutcheon were somewhat competitive with Harrison last around 2017. Even with a seeming recent Kokomo ascendancy, there's been a similar Harrison ascendancy. The addition of West Lafayette, albeit to the small division group, would be beneficial to Harrison, but they'd only get them roughly half of the seasons. There's nothing in East Large to help and I'm not sure there's much on that East Small that helps out either. While I think the mix that you suggest is better for the NCC in general, I'm not sure that, realistically, Harrison wasn't going to need to search for an alternative conference lineup to avoid being perpetually relegated to 10-game seasons.