foxbat

Harrison over Richmond 42-8. Final Richmond picked up a 90-yard passing TD in the waning moments.

Harrison leads Richmond 35-0 at half. Running clock in 2nd half.

I raised this issue in another post along with the potential major shakeup of conferences maneuvering x number of programs for post season and either leaving other programs behind or shoving them out of conferences. This could produce several sub-par conferences with no real opportunities for improvement or, potentially worse, more "independents" that can't get a conference to entertain admitting them under any circumstances. In Texas, the primary reason for Texas cutting out half the state's participants has more to do with logistics and much less to do with competitiveness. Texas has an 11-week season to play 10 games ... they have a bye week baked in to their season ... and their championships finish, this year, on December 17. They can't really afford to have any more folks involved outside of the top four from each district unless they want to hold their championships on Christmas Eve.

3 POINT GAMES Benton Central @ Tipton Lafayette Central Catholic @ Hamilton Heights Rensselaer @ Cass Twin Lakes @ Northwestern West Lafayette @ Western North Newton @ Tri-County West Central @ North White North Vermillion @ Seeger Kokomo @ Lafayette Jeff Sheridan @ Carroll

Frankly, I wasn't talking to you and I was presenting a PLAYER perspective as opposed to an online-forum fan perspective, so I'm not quite sure why I have to change your mind about something that I wasn't talking about in the first place. Also, it won't matter what is being presented because it doesn't agree with what YOUR IDEA is, so it will be wrong. As a dad and a coach of youth players for many years, I want different things for my kids and players than many other folks may want. So be it. My players and my kids were often urged to weigh their accomplishments against themselves and not necessarily by what the scoreboards said or by the W-L column. It was a mantra of our programs that the scoreboard could say that you won by three TDs, but you didn't win if you didn't do your best and played a sloppy game. By contrast, you could have lost the game, but gave it 100% and executed to the best of your ability and gained from it. It may not be entertaining for all of the sports fans of Indiana, but it worked for our kids and players. I've seen two decades plus of Indiana football and, as I stated before, can say that the vast majority OF PLAYERS would not agree that their regular seasons count for nothing ... even if you added the words "come the post season."

I do find the discussion somewhat interesting as I've never seen anything close to a groundswell of support FROM THE PLAYERS about regular season games not meaning anything. It might be a fan issue, but of the various players that I've known over the years in Indiana, I've not ever heard of complaints about the regular season games not meaning anything. The smell on the bus? Check. The long drive into another timezone? Check. The small visiting locker room with one working toilet? Check. Not getting cheese on the Subway sandwiches on the ride even though their parents paid for cheese? Check. Horrible fields? Check. Too hot? Check. Too cold? Check. Regular season games not meaning something? Not so much.

I pointed out previously, I think a situation of qualifications could have implications on conferences and rivalries and possibly beyond. What does that mean to Indiana? I'm less sure as I'm a reverse carpetbagger round these parts, but I hear that conferences are big in Indiana.

If you wanted to do it where it would be decided to drop around the time of the current ping-pong balls activity, you'd almost have to make the call based on first 7 weeks of the season ... first eight if the decision was made over the 8th week weekend and posted on the following Monday/Tuesday. Wouldn't be perfect, but would be timely enough for locations that would be hosting.

Number 2 with an emphasis on minimizing injuries; especially to key personnel.

I'm posting this again down here because it got lost in the numbers. I believe there are more meta issues at play and am curious what the broader landscape issue would be in a reduced post-season.

I'm not sure this is all-together true. Players on teams that are good might worry that their season gets upended in the first week of post-season due to having to face another good team, but most of them are more likely to grouse about the fact that the sectionals aren't seeded, at most, than the all-in format. The VAST majority of players that I've interacted with from good programs have the mindset "In order to be the best, you have to beat the best" and they don't really care when that occurs in the post-season. On the other side of the coin, realistic or not, not-so-great teams dream of redemption in post-season ... regardless of whether they've got a snowball's chance or not. I think you are right that many kids in not-so-good programs would favor all-in, but for good teams, I think it's a push at best and, more likely, not really something they think about much.

I'm not sure DC got the best draw outside of the potential to survive to the second round. I actually think their better draw would have been Plainfield. I don't expect McCutcheon to do much to get Decatur Central ready to face Harrison. A rematch with Plainfield, even though Plainfield won the first game, would give DC an opportunity to sharpen their skills and have a major morale boost, heading into a second round with Harrison. I think Harrison probably ended up with the best draw and I think Plainfield probably got the second best ... drawing Decatur Central might have been their best draw given the proximity to their win over DC and Harrison getting stuck playing Richmoand and McCutcheon with a week off for the next three weeks. While it wasn't optimal for all teams, I think it was a great draw overall for Sectional 13 action.

I like the draw in Sectional 13. Summer and pre-season, Decatur Central was the odds on favorite to emerge victorious from Sectional 13 and there was conjecture that it would likely be Decatur Central and maybe Whiteland that would be odds-on favorites to represent 5A South. At the start of the season, Harrison was a two-TD underdog to DC and is now a 5.5-point favorite on a neutral field. Harrison already played Plainfield earlier in the season and won 22-14 in a tighter-than-expected game. Plainfield also beat DC earlier in the season, in overtime, 34-32. I like the draw of Harrison and Plainfield getting a chances to square off again. If Harrison wins, it most likely gets Decatur Central in a much-anticipated showdown for the sectional championship as Decatur Central will face off against 2-7/3-6 McCutcheon in what is probably the easiest draw for first game in Sectional 13. Should Plainfield knock off Harrison in a revenge game, it sets up a Plainfield-Decatur Central rematch too. Given the players and possible outcomes, I think that the ping pong balls fell optimally for matchups across both rounds for Sectional 13.

Texas is organized by districts as opposed to conferences. Districts have ranged from six to ten teams, but it looks like recently the 6A class seems to have dropped to nine teams max. The way that Texas determines qualifiers is that, in each district, the top four teams are selected for post season. It works to be about 50% in post-season. With 10 teams playing 10 games, you could conceivably have a district where the top four teams in a district are 10-0, 9-1, 8-2, and 7-3. You could also see, in some of those districts, 10-0, 8-2, 8-2, and 8-2. That leaves 7-3 on the outside looking in come post-season.

Yep! Kind of like the Sectional of Death up this way. I was in one of those 10-team districts that beat the cr*p out of each other trying to get one of those coveted spots and then getting wiped out in area. They finally got us in an 8-team district recently and split the schools in our school district across two football districts. If I'm not mistaken, the new alignment means that there are now no more than nine teams in a 6A football district.

When you say impact, are you talking about sectional title or higher or something like semi-state or higher? In 2020, LCC was 2-3 heading into post-season. Those two wins came against Benton Central and Northwestern. LCC finished the season 5-4, losing in 1A semi-finals to South Adams. In 2021, in 2A, LCC finished 5-4 before post-season. They finished the season 8-5 and picked up a sectional title in 2A ... which provided enough points to keep them in 2A via SF for another cycle.

Was a joke ... goal posts skewed forward [inclined] and Incline Village is a real city in Nevada.

Couple of general questions ... not advocating for or against: What would this do to the current conference system implemented in Indiana? Many folks are grouped in a conference by geographic proximity, age-old rivalries, etc. Several of these are situations where there's an imbalance in ability, yet the schools still play. In cases where rivalries have remained while the current competitiveness has fluctuated, a qualifying playoff would seem to push these to be less desired and even viable. Yes, some schools might decide to "stick out" those rivalries, but for some schools a single game could be the difference between making the cut and not making the cut; even if there's a win. The argument is to add a tougher opponent to counter your rivalry game, but it becomes an issue of figuring out how much you need to offset that rivalry game, you could potentially shoot yourself in the foot in scheduling. Given the above, assuming that conferences stayed, would this likely accelerate a major set of conference shakeups and result in, by necessity of play, conferences that would be "whatever's leftover?" In other words teams in the quarter to third of conferences that are average overall, look for stronger alliances to make sure they don't get caught in the borderline eliminations based on teams they play in conference. Similar "top thirds" band together or eject the bottom quarter or third in their conference. What's left are many "bottom thirds," that, in order to have a conference, likely have to travel greater distances or, perhaps even have to play bottom-third teams of higher classes, e.g., a 2A bottom third playing 4A bottom thirds. We already have some of this currently, but a qualification application might exacerbate this further. For those that get left out and have to go "independent" they are likely facing more travel distance or incomplete seasons ... which are even more problematic. Many conferences right now are based, if you exclude issues like travel, on more cumulative aspects than just football. For example, some programs are in a conference not only to compete in football, but other sports as well. Some teams that are in less-than-perfect football conferences tend to be in the conference for the balance of the other sports. Right now, programs suffer no major potential drawbacks for balancing portfolios; however, might that change or be impacted by a qualification requirement for football? My two most recent states have been Texas and Indiana, so I'm fairly familiar with the all-in and the forced qualification process and understand the general good/bad in them. The difference in Texas and Indiana is the lack of conferences outside of the artificial conferences that Texans refer to as districts, so it really doesn't weigh in to the Texas qualification system like it could in a state like Indiana. Again, not picking one over the other in these questions, but asking some questions that are beyond the discussion we typically had in Texas.

Some of those 10-team districts in Texas can have your season over before you even get to the halfway point. 6-4 could mean staying at home come playoffs ... even 7-3. Are you discouraging Mishawaka? 😁

The uproar in most situations where there's tends to come not from the 0-9 and 1-8 teams, but from 5-4 teams that miss the cut.

As long as you come go in and out injury-free, I'd consider it a good thing. More effective to sharpen a knife on a stone than on a pillow.

I'd actually pointed out this rule to my son earlier in the day. I meant executed perfectly in the sense that they set up Logansport on the previous kick to get that front line out of position and then got an great kick on the next kick that landed where it needed to from across the field ... away from the receivers and not going out of bounds. The gunner just got "handsy" too quickly.