foxbat

Roncalli defeats Brebeuf 21-14.

Gotta imagine LCC's D had 10-11 in the box almost all night long.

Kokomo over Mississinewa 44-13. Final.

Jeff and Crown Point knotted at 21 with a bit under 3 minutes left in 3Q.

Carroll (Flora) defeats West Central 47-6.

West Lafayette 23 - Hanover Central 14 at the half.

LCC 24 - Rochester 8. Final. LCC apparently able to hold off the three-headed ground dragon from Rochester. Knights win their second 2A sectional in as many seasons. Will likely remain in 2A another cycle.

Interesting. How much time left?

WL 20 - HC 14 with 8:26 left in Q2

LCC 17-8 over Rochester ... scoring after a blocked punt. 7:24 left in the game.

WL 13 - 7 over Hanover Central ... 1:53 left in 1Q

Hanover Central 7 - WL 6 PAT failed. About 5 minutes left in 1Q.

Apparently WL received and after three penalties gave HC the ball on WL 32 to start with.

Hanover Central 7 - West Lafayette 0 in 1Q.

LCC 10 - Rochester 8 at the half

3 POINT GAMES West Lafayette @ Hanover Central Central Catholic @ Rochester West Central @ Carroll Lafayette Jeff @ Crown Point Valparaiso @ Chesterton Decatur Central @ Plainfield Whiteland @ Franklin Brebeuf @ Roncalli Knox @ Jimtown Scecina @ Triton Central

Is this really a deterrent per se? Maybe it's different at the middle school level. I know at the youth levels, while a lot of folks swear by having youth programs run the high school schemes, when I coached youth at LCC, I saw five head coaches and an interim come and go and all had the same philosophy when we asked about what they wanted us to run. They all said, don't worry about formations/plays ... teach them good skills, teach them how to be safe, teach them to work together, have fun, and keep them coming back and they would worry about plays and formations when they got them in high school. I think that the newest coach may have altered that now.

Could also be the alternative of different sports steering kids from football youth leagues. Would also be interested in seeing if there are other impact areas as well. That Carmel/Westfield area is home to LOTS of emerging travel baseball squads and those squads are starting to trickle down into the younger age groups. It's one thing when the travel teams is tied to your school program like Harrison and Westfield and even Carmel and they work to not create potential drain from their own other sports programs, but there are lots of those travel programs that don't have school ties/allegiance and are in direct conflict. More and more kids are starting to be one-sport or two-sport kids where they used to be three-sport and four-sport. Soccer programs are also becoming more league than rec as well as the youth level, so it used to be a situation when you had a kid that played football and soccer, you could rely on that kids being at the vast bulk of football practices and maybe missing out or leaving practice early every once in a while for a mid-week soccer game. Nowadays, you are starting to see kids playing football and soccer and they miss one out of every two football practices a week for soccer and maybe a quarter to third of football games because of the conflict with soccer. Similarly, we've seen kids doing fall baseball instead of football and, in some cases, just chucking football completely to play fall baseball; even though fall baseball tends to be more rec than league/tourney ... although there are some fall ball teams that actually travel and play out of state. My youngest son played as a filler on a travel team from southern Indiana, but my stipulation to the coach was that he would not be available to play until youth football season was over.

OK, that sounds like a Hall of Fame coach quote.

I think LCC just missed its first PAT this past weekend. Kickoffs favor Rochester on distance averaging about 46 yards. Rochester doesn't punt a lot, but when they have, it hasn't been stellar. They are averaging about 18 yards a punt. Not that their punt daya and kickoff data is incomplete ... e.g., apparently Rochester didn't kickoff in the Maconaquah and Wabash games. LCC's kickoff has been averaging about 32 yards with punts about the same. Returns favor LCC with 23 yards on kickoffs and about 18 on punts. Rochester averages around 14-15 yards on kickoffs and only around 3 yards on punt returns. LCC returners are always dangerous. They have four games with kickoff returns of over 30 yards while Rochester has only one. Likewise, LCC has six games with punt returns of 20 or more yards ... including three with returns of more than 40 ... while Rochester has one game over 20 for games reported.

Anyone have insights on those Cass fumbles? There tend to be about three types of fumbles that happen in games 1) loaf of bread handling, 2) right hit, right time, right place, and 3) active defense. There are some offenses where if the defense sneezes, that ball's coming loose. There are some defenses that just swarm folks and that ball's coming out ... it's just a question of if the whistle blows first. Other times, it's just a situational fumble of the right hit at the right time. Any insights? Cass had six fumbles for the whole season and then ended up with four just in the LCC game. Rochester, similarly, has five fumbles in the season so far. Is it LCC that cause the difference in fumbles or just Cass not concentrating?

I love that line about making a travesty of the game. Have to be careful playing God though ...

It was an epidemic this last weekend over there. Four turnovers for the game with three fumbles in the second half and two in the last two possessions of the game including a scoop and score that gave Plainfield the lead.

You forgot the post game activities by the victors:

I would not disagree with that idea that a 0-4 start with a qualifier could provide a persistent damper to a season. I've seen it play out in a qualifier state. It's not everyone, but there are are some. If there's the idea that a qualifier makes teams "fight like mad" during the season and "makes the season more meaningful," then I'm not sure why some would feel that the opposite is also not a possibility as well ... that is, that a team gets deflated when the season is essentially over ... even if it happens midway through the season. I'm not saying that the all-in keeps teams playing at peak, but, coming out of Texas where qualifiers are life, I certainly have seen evidence of a qualifier putting out fires in a team's season earlier in a season.