foxbat

Closer than Richmond.

That may be the case, but often the mom's of priests are often a strong contributing factor to their following in that vocation. It's one of the reasons that the current bishop fully supports girls being altar servers. As a youth coach, we realized that, typically, the most important aspect to getting a kid into football and keeping them there was engaging and convincing the moms. I think the gender shortcoming argument tends to one on shaky ground. Standard argument that I've heard against girls playing the sport is the physicality of the game. There's may be some merit to that as you get high up in the gameplay, although I think there are some guys on teams that would get their clocks cleaned by some girls that might play the game. At the youth level; however, I think the differences are less defined and might just provide fertile ground for setting the hook for folks that might eventually be ripe for candidacy for officiating.

Odd not to see an LCC guy on that defense, but somewhat expected as the defense has fallen off a bit. LCC's always had offensive guys throughout the years whether it's RBs, QBs, receivers, etc., but always quietly lurking out there was a Cronk or a Corcoran or two or Kochert or Hubertz or Smith or Schrader or two or Beardmore or two or Adams or many of the other guys that stifled teams' dreams of keeping pace with the LCC offense.

Wasn't a question of winning. It was a question of doing it because I enjoyed it that made things fun ... regardless of how hard I worked or whether I won. I ran track as a way of building stamina for football. I hate running and hated every minute of track. Have only played on one team with a losing season in my life ... it was a baseball team in 4th grade I believe. Had more fun losing in baseball than winning in track. I know some folks love running, even with no prizes, but I'd rather miss a bus than run for it.

Don't forget Bishop Sycamore.

I think maybe it's just track as I can say the exact same thing about my time in distance running.

At least he'll get LCC at home rather than having to do homecoming at LaRocca.

When I coached youth football, one of my "practice before the game" routines was to do the traditional stuff like go over line-ups, remind the kids of special tendencies of the upcoming opponent, double-check who was going to be visiting grandma instead of coming to the game, etc. One part of that routine was to remind the kids of conduct and that they were representatives, not only of themselves and their team, but of their parents, school, faith, and community. Talked specifically about after-score activity, handing the ball to the ref rather than throwing it at them after plays, helping other players up including opponents, not saying anything to the other players other than positive comments, and if there was any problem, to tell a coach and the coach would talk to the ref or the other coach rather than them trying to handle it. I saw a person here on GID who has a tagline that says something to the effect that your are either coaching it or letting it happen. I like that idea in that both what we say/do and don't say/do has impact on our kids so, as coaches/parents, we need to be deliberate in that guidance from all angles.

There may be an interest, but rarely are these kinds of things preemptive and are often tied to a reactionary stance. If it happened 15 years ago in Indiana, the discussions in the IHSAA hallways are likely, "That was 15 years ago. No one remembers and that will never happen again." With that said, if it happens in 2023 and ends up viral like the Georgia one did, you might see refs with GoPros on their hats and @Tanka Jaharibeing sought after for his camera expertise ... although that seems to be limited to endzone cameras. 😃

I understand the issue in the current flawed implementation with just a two-year cycle and a two-year cycle with set start/end capability too. Of interest is that the teams that have repeated in a class beyond the 6-point number are public schools ... e.g, WeBo won three state titles in a row in the same class due to the cutoff cycle aspect of SF. I think, with a 4-year rolling cycle, I think a vast number of the gripes about SF go away and also the potential for yo-yoing. Matter of fact, yo-yoing, even if it happened with p/p would be more indicative of what we'd be trying to control for, which would be actual performance. Even in the case of the 1A titles that you are mentioning, realize that six of those belong to LCC, four came before SF even happened, and the last two wouldn't have happened as LCC would still likely be in 2A if there wasn't a flaw in the initial SF implementation of four points to stay ... and certainly wouldn't likely have happened under a 4-year rolling cycle. Once Lutheran goes to 2A, they are less likely to come back down ... and they only need a regional to go up next season. As for TPC, I think at 100 students, and the smallest school in the state playing IHSAA football, with the next largest clocking in at 169, I think it'd be a shame to send them up to 2A automatically just because the kids pay tuition. Again, I think an SF 4-year rolling cycle takes care of all of the issues, perceived or actual, and organically balances 1A for you along with the 32-team limit that takes care of others like Park Tudor and Covenant Christian while also getting a jump on the "suburbanization" issue too.

If you are going to make SF a 4-year rolling cycle, then why not let the issue of p/p in 1A, or any other class, be organic?

While I agree to an extent, the problem with 1A, if it's 32, there are an interesting number of teams that would be staying are flirting with staying in that class based on numbers. Cutoff would be right around 279 and that puts schools like Traders Point and Lutheran remaining in 1A along with previous contenders and up-and-coming contenders like Fountain Central, West Washington, Tri, and North Decatur ... without counter-balance balance of schools like Pioneer, Adams Central, South Adams, Covenant Christian, LCC, etc. Then again, with the new numbers, it looks several of those counterbalance folks are already ending up in 2A anyway even without 32 ... and SF may take care of the folks like Lutheran, Pioneer, and LCC, so perhaps the 2024 season might provide a glimpse of what a 32-team field might look like, albeit with 64 teams still in the mix. The bye week element though, as you mention, is probably more valuable to 1A teams than any other class.

I figured such, but just clearing up the SF stuff as it's been questioned on other threads given the anomaly implementation by IHSAA over the past year.

Solid numbers. Looks like the vast majority of their running backs were not seniors and, even though their QB was a senior, he wasn't responsible for a lot of ground or air yards. Sometimes though the best QBs are so because of what's between their ears vs. the power of their legs/arms. I didn't see any backup QB stats listed for Rochester. Do they have someone waiting in the wings to step in and run the offense; turning those backs loose to do their thing?

Correct. A sectional title this season leaves LCC up in 2A for another cycle. Anyone know what Rochester has coming back?

That's because of SF. The OP indicated that they included Cathedral in 6A as they already have enough SF points to be bumped. All of the rest of the classes show the pure enrollment/placement as opposed to Sf considerations ... even though some schools like LCC are actually in 2A right now due to SF. By enrollment, Warsaw would actually be a 6A school, but will get pushed down due to SF pushing Cathedral up. Same thing happened to Harrison this go round as they were 32nd in 6A and got bumped down to 5A when Cathedral got SF'd.

I suspect the 32 in 5A was a way of selling the 6A creation as a the same as 6A-I and 6A-II ... basically a "big 6A" and a "regular 6A." To an extent, it kind of the way Texas approaches "splitting" their 6A. There's a 6A Div I and 6A Div II, except that those are fluid and based on the qualifiers for post-season. In each district, the top four teams move on to the post-season. The two largest move to Div I and the two smallest move to Div II in that class for the post season. It's not perfect though as, because it's tied to district placement, you could run into a situation where the top team in District A might have 2,000 students and the smallest team in District B might have 4,000 and that would place the District A team in Div I and the District B team in Div II. For the most part, in tends to align like-size and like-size, but it's not perfect because the sizing takes place at such a granular level. 6A/5A in Indiana pretty much addresses this size issue as well as the fact that Indiana has an all-in post-season.

You could, potentially, put 64 in 5A ... the current 32 and the top 32 of 4A ... and have a doubling effect of 1041 at the bottom and 2096 at the top. It's just slightly more than the range in 4A right now and would probably be less negatively impactful in 5A vs. 4A.

Look at the gap in 1A ... 100 - 373.

Cathedral already has enough points, earning two this season with a regional victory over Brownsburg, to stay in 6A for the next alignment cycle. The $64,000 question is whether they have learned enough and shored up the foundation enough to make continuous sectional victories status quo and remain a fixture in the 32-team Battle Royale of 6A. That changes the 5A outlook ... especially with some of the glimpses of teams like Whiteland, DC, and even Plainfield.

Given the numbers and given that Valpo only needs a regional next year to bump up to 6A, that would switch Jeff and Valpo in Sectional 10. That would likely push Jeff toward the front of the pack out of 5A North with Merrillville and FW Snider.

What's interesting is that Faith fits with the idea of a "county school"; sitting on the "other side" of 65 and actually within the TSC boundaries. That provides a little more substance to the idea of county growth vs. city decline with Faith, Harrison, and McCutcheon showing growth and LCC and Jeff, within LCS boundaries, and West Lafayette, in its own city school district showing degrees of decline. In my opinion, Harrison should have taken that step this season and should have won at least a sectional and regional. You have to give Plainfield credit for their sectional pickup against Harrison. They hung close and just waited for Harrison to hand over the ball. Turnovers were the difference this season from being undefeated going into a semi-state game with Whiteland and dropping the first and last game of the season and departing the sectionals way too early.