foxbat

Nope, didn't forget it all all ... not that it matters in the overall results. Of course, given that they knocked off a Top 20, Top 25, and Top 15 for their last three games, which includes a sectional and regional championship, that's where the focus should be. The distraction of PolyTech and Pike Central shouldn't even be included at this point because that's all it is. They aren't here ... Monrovia is ... that's what I conveniently remember. In the end, it's about results and Monrovia bucked your prediction because 1) they made it out of a sectional, 2) they advanced more than "a round, sometimes two ...", 3) the sectional wasn't "exclusively chalk," and possibly the most interesting and 4) Cinderella runs in Indiana High School football do seem to exist ... even if every once in a while. It may well end this weekend for Monrovia, but there's no denying that their run has been 1) unexpected, especially given the season record, 2) something that defied the numbers, and 3) Cinderellaesque.

Then again, as was pointed out above, but never addressed, Monrovia is a bottom half team that advanced to a sectional final beating a Top 20 and then a Top 25 team, for the sectional title, who had in turn beaten a Top 25, Top 10, and Top 5 teams. Then Monrovia stepped into regionals and beat a Top 15 team that had also beaten a Top 30 team and a Top 10 team.

Going to be tied to keeping Mullis from running the ball on pass plays or going to the backside when there's sweep motion. This is where WL kills you if you are able to stop other elements of their game. And that offensive line doesn't typically get pushed straight back into the backfield on passes and that provides options for Mullis to escape ... if you try to go around the blockers, he slips into the slot and takes off. If the line gets your rushers funneled into the middle, he takes off on the outside. He averages 10 yards a carry and his lowest average, when running five or more times in a game is 6 yards a carry. 3rd and long is pretty much nothing to West Lafayette when you have a QB back there that can do that ... and that's what gets to most defenses ... you've got WL backed up, 3rd and long, and then Mullis gets out and the chains move and you now have to go another four downs with them. Mullis keeps drives alive when they look dead. Defenses can be great for four downs, but when you give a team 7 or 11 downs, especially a team like WL, that's like adding extra bullets to the chamber in Russian Roulette.

I buy in to the idea that it's hard to beat a team twice in a season when the initial score is tight ... kind of the law of averages. But it's just amazing the swing on some of these games. A couple of them make sense when you look at injury reports, but some are just head-scratchers like, how did Pike Central let Washington run up 41 points in the first game and shut out their offense and then turn around and limit Washington to a single TD?

Interesting way to think about things now ... Monrovia will be playing this weekend in 3A semi-state. That puts them as one of only four remaining teams in 3A ... one of 64. Further of interest is that they are one of just 24 teams still alive out of 316 teams that had Sagarin ratings. Incidentally, their Sagarin rating currently places them 135 in the state across all classes ... in the top half of ALL schools in the state, but just not in 3A.

Hope you guys make it to LOS.

Given that West Lafayette beat Harrison by 13 and Harrison beat Jeff @ Jeff, I'd agree with West Lafayette over Jeff.

At least one in Sectional 29 alone ... and now in regional between 29 and 30. Just curious, and I'm not really interested in hearing about Pike because that's a "squirrel" distraction, does Monrovia not only meet, but surpass that highlighted first-sentence?

Saw them play at the start of the season against Harrison at LOS. Will echo that they are fast and mix up the formations. The no huddle offense also is not a gimmick for a series or two and then it goes back to normal play like you see some teams do. If they start going to that no-huddle, make sure you lace up your track shoes because the only breaks you get are when you are on offense. Passing attack is pretty good, but I will say that it's not necessarily the pass that gets you with them, but the threat of pass with Mullis taking off. WL only had 100 yards passing against Harrison, but where they kill you is, on a 3rd and 7 with pass setup and then Mullis takes off for 10 yards and the drive continues. Mullis runs more like a fullback or linebacker when he takes off. He's big and hard to bring down which means, if he takes off on a pass play, you better catch him and hit him before he gets back to the line of scrimmage or you might as well just move the chains. Mullis, as a QB, AVERAGES 9.4 yards a carry. You have to play mistake-free ball with WL. They tend to make you pay with mistakes. Harrison was gritty enough, and big enough as a 5A school, to fend off giving the ball away four times against WL and only seeing two scores because of it, but those two scores were the difference in a 27-14 loss. Biggest vulnerability that I saw, but mind you this was at the start of the season and against a 5A school, is that Harrison saw success running the ball between the ends in straight-ahead football. That opened up the passing game. I think Harrison abandoned/minimized the ground-and-pound running game too early and started resorting to outside speed stuff and passing. Popp, Harrison's fullback, ended up the night with a 5-yard per carry average on 11 carries ... and he pretty much runs between the tackles and behind the guards a lot. Not sure why they didn't continue to have him pound away because he was effective. Don't know if that was tied more to Harrison or a fundamental chink in WL's armor and, even if so, has it been rectified by post-season. All in all, will be a good game. I believe WL's field is still grass. Has that really odd sideline-to-sideline crown too. Have not seen it this season, but it has only seen one football game played on it since September, and that was in a 50-7 blowout of Twin Lakes, so I suspect it should be in pretty good shape. Biggest thing you have to worry about on grass field that still has grass at this time of the season in Indiana is than any liquid on that grass makes the footing, with the frozen ground under it, treacherous ... as my dad used to say, "slicker than cat sh*t."

To an extent, yes. It's up about about 11% since 2015's counts. Growing faster though is Harrison which is up about 17% in the same timeframe. I believe, with the growth going on near Harrison ... a couple of housing communities going in ... that it will likely surpass Jeff and be the largest high school in the area. At last count, Jeff was around 2153 and Harrison was around 2079.

Andrean 30 - LCC 12. Final.

I thought that LCC under special watch this time around, along with one or two other team's whose names escape me at this point, since they were only in 2A for one season and stayed up while Chatard was only in 4A for one season and moved down.

This thread had been really quiet ... and I think I figured out why. At the start of the tournament, Monrovia was listed as 45th in Class 3A ... entering the post-season at 2-7. In the post season, before tonight, they had beaten three teams: Going into tonight's game, they were only given a paltry chance to win: At the start of the post season, Owen Valley, who entered the post season at 9-0 and tonight's game with Monrovia at an an impressive 12-0 was listed as 12th in Class 3A. After tonight ...... it looks like Monrovia will get at least one more dance at the ball next week.

Listening to it online. Really surprised that they'd risk that throw from the 15 with the time left and two timeouts. Latest score from Andrean-LCC was 30-12 Andrean with about 6 and a half left in the game. With a sectional this season and one last season, LCC settling in for a longer haul in 2A.

What I'm picking and what I'm pulling for are almost two different things. 😀 Picks: Andrean WL Carroll (FW) AC Pulling: LCC WL Jeff Carroll (Flora)

True. Might be more/less successful based on the Jimmies/Joes as opposed to Xs and Os, but if I recall correctly they played that style against LCC in the semi-state games back in 2011 and 2012. As typical, LCC had a nice passing attack balanced with a fast and wide running attack. Despite losing both times, Sheridan limited LCC to 17 and 13 points respectively in 2011 and 2012. Only CMA, which was the only team to beat LCC those two years was able to hold LCC to less offensive points.

Or my son's favorite, yoga. Which he refers to as 'gas.'.

3 Point Games Carroll @ Lafayette Jeff Westfield @ Hamilton Southeastern Cathedral @ Brownsburg Merrillville @ Valparaiso Kokomo @ Columbia City New Palestine @ Roncalli West Lafayette @ Knox Lafayette Central Catholic @ Andrean Evansville Mater Dei @ Triton Central North Decatur @ Sheridan

A certain someone on this thread, who probably wants to remain nameless, paid for me many, many years ago when I had just discovered GID. I was kind of a lurker and hadn't necessarily planned to stay on GID as I'd shown up at the end of the season for the first time right around regionals. Based on that act of generosity, I stuck around and have been a contributing member, via posts and donation ever since. Speaking of which, my donation should have made it in now ... via PayPal.

Freudian slip on the first post? BTW, who's Georgia?

That's what I heard! In my best @Donnie Bakervoice, "I gotta go." 😃

At 96 in the first half, I'm not sure there's much difference on pass or run ... that's a TD and PAT less than every two minutes.

Actually, without divulging names, because it pulls kids/coaches into the mix for speculation, they've been pretty successful. Others more of the verge of success. Some of them, not very good in terms of their records, but nonetheless, coaches and kids, for the most part, with very good hearts. Of course, it also happens in teams that aren't successful because they don't have good leadership or culture. Even teams that I myself played on back in the day ... back before there were facemasks and tackling a QB was still allowed ... and probably most of us at one time or another have seen it, had a kid on a team who believed that the coach just wasn't "seeing his potential" and walked off or threw the helmet/bat or just didn't show one day. Of course, there are some of those other situations where the coach informs the player that his services are no longer required before he gets that opportunity to let the team down. In either case, the issue of kid walking off is actually more common than a lot of folks think. Not that I condone it or would let it slide if it were my team, but it's actually not as rare as might be expected.

Danny ran track ... distance runner. Rydell High had Tom Chisum ... and they weren't very good. Now Ridgemont's Jefferson? Whole other story!

Yep, I've seen it in programs and I've seen it across sports where a kid might "quit" mid-game. Yes, it can be a culture program, but I've also see it when it's not culture. I'm not familiar with Merrillville as a program, so I can't speak to their culture, and it's also why I mentioned specifically "personal attitude" rather than team culture in my statement of response.