foxbat

Sure there are, but you just have to wish real hard and believe in your heart. It's kind of like those Magic Eye pictures ... only some folks can see those roads. Although with the plethora of CBD gummies out there, more and more folks are able to "see the road."

Doesn't really help Harrison or McCutcheon. Harrison used to have THS on its non-con schedule for a couple seasons and closest game was 20 points. Frankfort and West Vigo would make playing your own JV the better option from a travel, cost, and competition standpoint. Definitely too big for the Hoosier at this point in time, although a fairly long time ago they were part of the Hoosier. They play LCC for scrimmage ... probably more so for travel and they've recently added West Lafayette as non-con already. West Lafayette has also played McCutcheon non-con in the past as well as Jeff, so they are intriguingly interesting if there's a new conference to be had and it was going to involve grabbing someone local. The Sagamore doesn't really help at all although Tri-West is a remaining member that would be some competition ... but no one to heavily push them toward being better come tourney time. Jeff recently scheduled Cathedral. Wonder if Harrison could get Cathedral on their bill ... Battle of the Brothers? Harrison has played several of the p/p folks in undercard and even fill-in games at varsity level including Chatard, Brebuef, and Roncalli, so there's likely something going on there. Just hosted Guerin for baseball and already has played Cathedral and Brebeuf in the past.

It would take them to 10, so that could present some scheduling issues. Harrison is already playing Plainfield in a home-and-home arrangement and actually faced off last season in the sectional too. DC is also in that same sectional and faced off against McCutcheon. Wonder what would be the chances of peeling off Plainfield and DC if Harrison could get West Lafayette and Lebanon. Lebanon used to play Mooresville on a consistent basis up until last season, so they've played Mid-State caliber. The last four meetings haven't gone well for Lebanon, but the ones before were competitive and leaned toward Lebanon's favor.

I don't think an hour travel is too much of an issue, especially if it's straight shot. So let's say you get West Lafayette to join Harrison and McCutcheon and Lebanon joins in. What would be: your ideal other teams to join to make it an 8-team conference your realistic other teams to join to make it an 8-team conference The only other "constraint" is the realization that Harrison likely moves to 6A next cycle, so that certainly has impact on who you want in the conference as Harrison will need, minimally, someone else in that 6A caliber, although not necessarily 6A classification, to sharpen the sword.

Not sure how Lebanon would do playing Harrison. Harrison just blanked them yesterday in JV baseball like 19-0. The interesting question that I see is perhaps West Lafayette. West Lafayette has played all three of Lafayette-area big teams in football in the recent past and has done quite well. It would certainly up their game playing 2-3 large teams every year plus a slate of, maybe, mid-range 5A/4A. Wonder if you would see something like Lebanon, West Lafayette, Harrison, McCutcheon, and perhaps grabbing a couple from the Mid-State? Frankly, putting travel aside for a minute, I'd like to see them link up with Carmel, Center Grove, and possibly toss in Penn. Could potentially join Mid-State too. Maybe a pair for the MIC?

Probably still smarting over the last two football seasons. Lord, I apologize for that right there.

The question at this point is also, what happens with Jeff if its enrollment keeps it 6A? I can't imagine Jeff staying much longer in NCC with Harrison and McCutcheon out. Yes, Jeff could potentially schedule Harrison and/or McCutcheon, but if any of these schools finds a conference or a semi-stable schedule, they would only be non-conference for Jeff, at best, and might even end up not being available. That means that Jeff's STRONGEST conference foe, moving forward and based solely on last season, would be 4A/5A Kokomo. Given that last year, excluding Harrison and McCutcheon, Jeff outscored its remaining NCC opponents 251-47 and Kokomo accounted for 30 of those points alone, there's not much left for Jeff, from a football perspective at least, that would be a strong reason to stay. It was tenuous before and now even more so.

Harrison has played schools in the south more often in pre-season, so it likely makes sense to go in that direction although there are some potential north folks too. Harrison currently plays Plainfield and has played THS and Westfield in the past. The issue that Harrison was going to likely have to face anyway, so this may well be a blessing in disguise outside of the painpoint of near-term scheduling, is that Harrison is only 5A this cycle due to Cathedral being 6A via Success Factor. It will be 6A next cycle. Harrison was going to have to find a way, at least for football, to play a larger 6A-like schedule to be ready for anything other than 10-game seasons moving forward and that just couldn't happen in the NCC the way it was/is structured.

Those reasons of enrollment gap and geography don't make sense if Jeff isn't included. McCutcheon is the smallest of the Lafayette area schools and Jeff is currently the largest, with Harrison likely to surpass it in the near future. For competitiveness, maybe as Harrison has won the All Sports titles from 2015 - 2020 per the NCC site ... of course, it hasn't been updated since 2020: https://northcentralconference.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/2020/09/all-sports.pdf. Jeff won basketball in 2019 and 2020 and McCutcheon won it in 2016 and 2018. Harrison has never won it. For baseball, Jeff won it in 2016 and 2017, McCutcheon won it in 2015 and 2019. Harrison has never won it. Boys soccer ... Harrison won it in 2014, 2016, and 2017. Jeff last won it in 2002 and McCutcheon has never won it. For football, Harrison won it in 2016 and, even though not updated on the site, won it back-to-back in 2021 and 2022. Jeff won it in 2017-2020. For women's sports, Harrison has won All Sports 2016-2020. Jeff last won it in 2003 and McCutcheon won it in 2015. For volleyball, Harrison has never won it, Jeff last won it in 1992 and McCutcheon won it 2017-2019. Soccer ... Harrison won it in 2016-2017, Jeff last won it in 2002, and McCutcheon won it 2014-2015 and 2018-2019. Softball ... Harrison won in 2017-2018, Jeff last won in 2003, and Mccutcheon has never won. Basketball ... Harrison won in 2020, Jeff last had a streak of 2017-2019, and McCutcheon has never won. Again, this is all based on NCC site through 2020. In essence, in looking at the bigger sports, the reasoning isn't really there for Harrison and McCutcheon, but not Jeff. For all sports, maybe, but not sport by sport other than the most recent for football and, even then it's only been Harrison over Jeff the last two years.

Hadn't heard it around here. There's been RUMOR stuff on the wind about a couple of the smaller schools possibly looking for a different conference in the last year or so, but nothing definitive other than Arsenal Tech's last season with the NCC being 2022-2023. https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2022/07/06/arsenal-tech-leave-north-central-conference-citing-travel-concerns-mic-metropolitan-interscholastic/7823871001/

Still would like to see Pioneer join the Hoosier Conference ... although it would spoil the post-season buzz leading up to the showdown with LCC in most seasons.

Scrappy team that fights to the last whistle.

When I played ball, our indoor facility, when it rained or was cold, was ... outside.

I've got five kids. I've never had marshmallows in my bowls of Lucky Charms.😃

I find it interesting that folks are highlighting p/p schools as something that this would impact most. Realize that WeBo won three consecutive 2A titles in 2018-2020. Of interest is that Luers, who WeBo beat in their third-straight appearance, said nary a word about the supposed "injustice," but I do recall a few public school posters giving WeBo a hard time about that. Also, Pioneer had three visits in a row to LOS in 2016-2018 in 1A and actually had four visits in five years 2014-2018. In contrast, Scecina had only two visits in 2011-2012, lost both, and got bumped to 2A ... the only team, in the history of SF, to get bumped without getting a blue ring in the process. While Lutheran and Mater Dei COULD indeed join the club, the programs that have ACTUALLY benefited from the set periods re-evals are public programs.

Park Tudor has two in the top 30 including a QB and LB? No disrespect intended, but there may be lots more that haven't filled out the form to be evaluated.

Hasn't Winamac actually yo-yo'd? They were 1A back in the 2012-2014 stretch ... lost a regional game to LCC after beating Tri-County, Noll, and West Central. Bumped up to 2A around the 2015-2016 seasons; culminating in a regional lost to Whiting. Dropped back down to 1A in 2017 and just recently bounced back up in 2022 to 2A.

With LCC kind of being pushed out of the HHC and being invited in to the HC, it left a natural void in the HCC. The HHC has also since expanded by picking up folks like Eastern, Taylor, and Delphi. Delphi also used to be in the Hoosier too, but left around 2016 I think. The travel aspect, when you factor in Tipton and RCHS, just had to be a pain for a 1A school that far south ... at least that's what I thought. There was rumor that Sheridan didn't want the prospect of playing LCC in the regular season or that Sheridan wanted an easier schedule, but I have a hard time believing that Sheridan would leave just to make things easier on themselves on the field. I never got that impression from Coach Wright or any of Sheridan's players. Matter of fact, I always got the opposite feeling. They'd take on all comers and didn't shy away from tough. Kind of team you liked being on the field with even if they were wearing opposing colors as they brought out the best in themselves and their opponents.

And West Lafayette wasn't always the juggernaut. Toss in RCHS in that mix, and Sheridan who departed when LCC entered, and in the last 15 seasons, the HC has sent five different programs, across three classes, to LOS to represent the conference in 14 finals and brought home 11 blue rings. And four of those five programs were 1A/2A.

At least DeMotte's in the same timezone with SouthNewton.

Probably not. Tri-West stepped in on an undercard game when Richmond said that they wouldn't be sending a JV team to play Harrison's JV. Harrison only has two non-con games on its schedule anyway at this point. They used to have Westfield and THS, but this last year, and for the coming season, they got West Lafayette and Plainfield. I'm not sure if that's just a home-and-home with those guys or a multi-year activity.

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.

Would it be more beneficial, even with a big school/small school split to do something akin to the Hoosier? Play all within your division, two cross-division during the season, and crossover championship based on place in division in Week 9. You could, in theory, play up Week 9 as David vs. Goliath although a couple of those Davids might look more like Goliath in some seasons. Triton and North Judson are more than capable of holding their own and, if Pioneer's able to rebuild a bit, they could be back in that mix too. Given that Bremen and Glenn played SB Clay and SB Washington, respectively, for the Week 9 game in the last couple of years, their Week 9 matchup, under this proposal, would likely do more to get them ready for post-season than the aforementioned two teams. For the 1A teams, there's a probable step up as well for Week 9.

I'm assuming there's a PO Box where we send our investments? 😀

I remember talking with my dad when I was in high school, early 80s, one time we were driving back to visit my grandmother; his mother-in-law. The discussion turned to Social Security somehow and I asked him about the idea of Social Security going bankrupt. My dad talked about the ins and outs of the financing of the program and all the bits and pieces about it and how politics often latches on to it. As we pulled into my grandmother's driveway, I recall my dad's final thoughts on the subject ... he said, even if he never lived long enough to get his benefits or they went bankrupt he was content to know that his contributions were aiding my grandmother and the "folks across the street" ... my grandmother lived across the street from the "old folks home" where she often volunteered her time helping "those old people" who were younger than her. 🙂 My dad died almost 35 years ago as a young man ... and his Social Security payments are still helping my mom.