foxbat

There are already schools in Ohio and Kentucky that cross state lines to play Indiana teams on a regular basis. There are a couple of other programs in Illinois that have also played Indiana teams too ... like Crete-Monee and St. Joe-Ogden and some others in that Iliana border. We've also had situations where we've had kick-off weekends or early-season weekends at LOS with about eight Indiana schools. Maybe hit some of the lower-hanging fruit, with some of those out-of-state teams that are more likely to join in, and have something like a Multi-State Kickoff Classic at LOS in the first couple of weeks of the season. Might eventually strike up something post-season too.

I don't think it has to be widespread or all-in. The experience would be phenomenal for kids.

In the video, around the halfway point, the AD seems to allude that there are "athletes" at the school, but that they aren't out for football. It's probably not a critical mass running around the hallways, but there may be enough for basketball.

Of interest is, this past season, only Chatard would have had a chance to make it out of semi-finals if they had remained in their regular classes.

Yeah, but now he's at Jeff. Lord, I apologize for that there.

Then the best option, given those three, is to stay in the NCC as going independent produces far to many headaches and uncertainties and the return on investment for forming their own league is, at best, picking one additional game that they could schedule as they already get two to schedule in the NCC. Too many headaches and uncertainty in starting your own league just for one game. Better off just staying in the NCC given those options. The effort spent on forming a new conference would be better spent on 1) seeing if a school such as Muncie Central, Tech, Anderson, Richmond, or Marion try to do something closer to home, leave the conference, then look to add someone to the mix that plays at a level higher than the team that leaves, 2) lobby for a two division conference with five in a division and play the four in your division plus two crossover ... no championship and that leaves three dates open, or 3) just flat out lobby for a 6-game conference schedule.

Lebanon, LCC, and West Lafayette would be the only real differences in that idea and Harrison and McCutcheon will already likely have WL on their schedules. Jeff picked up Cathedral, so that works out better for them than last season's non-con of West Lafayette. While LCC brings discipline and speed as well as a passing offense into the mix, the size doesn't help Jeff and Harrison in getting ready for the post-season. I don't think LCC would have an issue playing in that size conference assuming they would leave the Hoosier, but Harrison/Jeff would need more power punchers at the top of the league as opposed to bringing in someone else who can beat Tech, Muncie Central, Richmond, and Anderson. The teams that would benefit the most from such a situation would likely be LCC, provided the size doesn't dent them up to much for post season and West Lafayette. Possibly Lebanon as well. For Jeff/Harrison and probably McCutcheon, forming a league that looks like the above, probably gives them less options to move to other conferences where there could be more competition and, at best the above configuration provides a wash for at least Harrison and Jeff. Frankfort instead of LCC makes the proposition less. Travel is a consideration, but think Harrison at least would rather play in the HCC and do the travel as opposed to creating a league as presented above. Now that option changes a bit if you could grab a couple of higher-level 5As or mid-6As to join such a league.

This is a shame as I think that Harrison has been closing that gap ... especially when you look at the under cards. The past 4 years, Harrison's varsity has seen the following in Westfield matchups: 2022 ?? 2021 L 11-33 2020 L 10-34 2019 L 28-55 2018 L 16-28 The JV matchups have been: 2021 L 22-23 2020 L 26-34 Freshman matchup 2020 21-28 Those teams in green are the cohort that's up and coming. This year's JV game came down to a 47-/48-yard field goal at the end for the winner. BTW, you've got to keep an eye on Westfield's JV kicker, Boehm, as he moves up ... he'll be a junior next year. I had an opportunity to coach him when he was younger. He was winning the PK part of PPK competitions back when he was a kid and has just gotten better over time. He was a good tailback/slot back, but I think he's focusing solely on his kicking game now. I was really hoping to see this play out in 2022 or 2023. Guess we'll now have to wait until post season stuff for that potential matchup. West Lafayette should be a good move for Harrison to add. McCutcheon has done a good job in picking up Guerin and West Lafayette as its too non-cons a few years back. Guerin has some growing pains to work through, but I think they'll provide a a good sharpening stone for McCutcheon and West Lafayette, well they're West Lafayette. Plainfield should be a move-up in competition from THS, but not sure if it provides the kind of shift in competition they need. My favorite scenario given these teams would have been keeping Westfield and trading out THS for West Lafayette, but I guess you take what you can get at this point until things shift again.

Jeff / Harrison are likely to move together due to the fact that both will be 6A. McCutcheon is currently, and likely to stay 5A. It's highly likely that, wherever Harrison goes McCutcheon would likely follow, but I also don't know that that is a given. McCutcheon would be fine for sports, although the female sports have thrived more than the male sports recently. Their women's volleyball just won state this year and are in the set of favorites to do it again next year. Women's soccer has also done well in the NCC. Boys' basketball has taken conference a couple of times recently. Nothing against McCutcheon, but a big part of the focus with Harrison moving up to 6A, since they just passed Jeff in numbers, is playing more than two competitive 6A schools a season. Right now the NCC only provides Jeff as their 6A foil along with non-conference Westfield. Occasionally, Kokomo, in 5A, squeezes into that mix, but that set of three provides a problem should Harrison move up to 6A and decide that they would like to strive deeper in the post-season. If not, then staying in the NCC is fine for them. I suspect that the former is where the program is likely headed.

There was an article in the Indy Star on Crawford County's team back in 2019. There's a video that's associated with it. If you have a chance to view the video, it runs about 17 minutes, it's well worth it. https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2019/11/07/indiana-high-school-football-crawford-county-wolfpack-team-fights-survival/4096141002/

If that's the case, would Avon be a better match for something like NCC ... yes, I know it's a longshot ... if NCC could convince Tech to go to the MIC ... since according to one GID source they would be a perfect fit after IPS gets rid of all of the other schools and forces them Tech's way NCC could pick up another 6A puncher Another thought, but much more spitballing here, if you could shake Jeff and Harrison loose from the NCC and Avonfrom HCC, who else might be possible to shake loose from other conferences to form a new conference? There's still the question over this MIC action is tied just to the MIC and its two former members, MIC and HCC, or possible domino tumbling set in place. This would be part of that last option of dominoes tumbling.

Again, not sure how this is applicable to my post in response to @crimsonace1. He was trying to figure out where the extra schools came from in your post. I pointed out to him that the problem is likely in the source that you used. The fact that the source was showing schools in Indiana with a 1:1 ration for students means that the 6xx number that they stated doesn't really indicate schools in the mix for IHSAA consideration at any time. Incidentally, Texas vs. Indiana football is slightly less than 4-to-1 team ratio with football including P/P. Harrison's going to be coming into 6A most likely as it just surpassed Jeff in size, so they have to take that into account in splitting up Jeff and Harrison.

Please. Like others here, I'm calling you out on your lack of reality/understanding in your posts and pointing out the flaws or lacking. Would be nice to see your response to my statements and answering the two examples that I provided as opposed to child's play. By the way, I also noticed that you didn't respond any to the post about districts when you found out that your assumptions about districts was wrong. Districts don't make the game not worth playing and doesn't exclude rivalries or prevent them from continuing. I can tell you that as a student of a district state as well as a follower of teams in a district state. Now, in the case of a closed conference, yes, that certainly ends rivalries or long-standing games from being played. As an example, and using the "nomadic" Raiders, Harrison has played Westfield every season for the last 20 years as a member of two different conferences. If the HCC goes to a 10-team closed conference, that two-decade matchup will go by the wayside.

Not sure if there are any schools that do sports, but not IHSAA sports that would also not fall under their control. For example, hockey isn't under IHSAA control/guidance. More likely than not is the source of that information which is high-schools.com (https://high-schools.com/directory/in/). Take a look further at the site and you'll notice that the top five private schools in Indiana, based on their site and counting of schools, include schools that have student-teacher ratios from 3 down to the best which is 1. Those aren't, even for private schools, realistic as schools that COULD BE under the IHSAA governance. I mean, even in homeschooling, the ratio in our house is, right now, 3-to-1. Those top-five schools listed just under that category are unlikely to ever be in a position to do much with IHSAA other than maybe tennis ... and even then, I'm not sure if they would qualify under the membership requirements.

Yeah, that's it. See my subsequent post about coming from a district-based football system. I also have an LCC affiliation too and, if you follow my posts in the HC threads, you'd see that I have a fairly strong conference affiliation for the HC too. Of course, I also went to college and am affiliated with schools from teh Big 12, Big 10, SEC, and the old SWC as well. I've spent PLENTY of time in conference affiliations. What my experiences have told me is that it's more about operation than semantics. You assume that just because they are called districts that rivalries don't happen and can't be scheduled, but that's not the case in all places with districts ... e.g., Texas. As for Jeff and Harrison being nomads, there are PLENTY of schools in Indiana who have been members of more than one conference or multiple conferences. I mean seriously, Sheridan has been part of at least five conferences in their existence. You're going to tell me that Sheridan fans don't feel a need for a "conference connection" as you call it or are you going to disenfranchise them as well? Or a school like RCHS which has been in at least three conferences and even independent for a while?

Not sure of you point. Everyone knows that Texas is bigger and THAT is the reason that Texas has a qualifier system; not because it has districts.

Speaking as someone who came from a district environment in Texas, we fought for district titles and placement in the post-season. And as for rivalries, depending on your district, you had opportunities to schedule at least one outside of your district and up to five teams. Up to the last district alignments, the district that my team played in had all of the members in its districts from the same ISD ... currently there are 12 schools in that ISD and all six are 6A schools. Prior to the last classification, we were in a district with nine other sister-schools. This go-round they actually split those 12 schools between two districts ... one district is a district of eight teams, with all eight from the same ISD and then the other four are in a district together. This go-round, my alma mater played seven district games and three non-district, with three of their district games being against sister schools from the same ISD. Given that my alma mater was the third school in that mega-conglomerate ISD, there are definitely rivalries that exist.

Districts is the Texas model ... among others. With that said, the reason that Texas has qualifications is not because it has a district model, but because it currently takes until this weekend that Texas will hold its state finals ... and that's WITH only taking the top four teams out of each district. Some of the Texas districts have 10 teams in them. Their post season, after a 10-week season, started November 11. Could you imagine if they played an all-in tourney? That would take them in to next year.

https://yarn.co/yarn-clip/d244cca7-b419-4ea2-ae21-c97cd5d35f49 😀

In part, that's probably because most would have seen Carmel and CG calling the shots while they were still part of the MIC. Floating out there without the foundation of a conference provides less leverage. While the MIC statement might have seemed mean-spirited in the way it was delivered, it gave them the advantage in controlling the narrative and, potentially, inflicting a little damage on the way out the door. It's starting to definitely look like there was more than just plain old logic involved from the MIC side.

That assumes, to some extent, that this is an HCC vs. MIC issue as opposed to 6-in-the-MIC vs. two-removed-from-the-MIC. If it is a MIC vs. HCC issue, then I suspect that was already factored into MIC's remaining schools' decision.

Not sure what P/Ps would join in. Circle City might invite these two, but I don't necessarily see Circle City folks leaving the CCC to join up in a new Carmel/CG-led conference. Not sure Cathedral wants a conference although you might have more specific info being closer to the program. They are doing quite well without one and I hear that the Roncalli thing might be back in the mix on a regular basis. I imagine Cathedral is probably one of the few teams where being independent provides maybe more options/advantages than being in a conference. For some of the other non-Catholic or non-Catholic-related programs like HC or Concordia, I don't see them gaining a whole bunch from joining with Carmel and CG. Covenant Christian is just too small to gain any real benefit. Did you have some folks in mind?

I suspect when GID gets more server storage.

It would be a move in the right direction, at least for football, for both Harrison and Jeff and could potentially be the only one pending if other conferences shake up over this. They got booted from the HCC a few years back, so that's not likely an option at this time.

Data? Don't need data right? It's common sense ... or so I've been told.