foxbat

As always, thanks a bunch for taking this on @CoachDurham and managing the points as well as selecting the games. It's a bunch of fun and your efforts are most appreciated! Looking forward to next season.

Recall that there was also that really weird weather week around the 2nd/3rd week of the season where plenty of games were started, but never finished. The vast majority of those were erased from schedules like they were never even scheduled. I think it was the weekend of August 30.

Bend Not Break?

3 Point Game Fort Wayne Luers vs Heritage Hills North Judson vs Providence 5 Point Game Westfield vs Brownsburg East Noble vs New Palestine Adams Central vs Linton Warsaw vs Decatur Central TIE BREAKER Combined Points scored in 5A Game: 59

I'm interested to see how this plays out. When both were in 1A, they both had to get past Lutheran for a shot at a blue ring. Linton was able to do it, convincingly, to eventually back in 2016 toobtain a blue ring. AC faltered in three tries, culminating in three red rings. Linton has again knocked off Lutheran on the way to LOS. Wonder if that's any type of confidence booster for Linton?

I don't know that it's definitive proof that it's completely working, but if the idea is that it's allowing a greater number of others to have a chance at more success in the future, then I'd say it's leaning in the right direction. The biggest flaws in SF that I have tended to identify seem to be tied to the idea that SF was developed to provide a workaround a P/P issue as opposed to thinking about longer term success. This is similar to the wisdom of having Chatard SF'd to 4A only to play cute with assigning them to the same sectional as Roncalli or the 3A Catholic Sectional of Death. First, SF should have been based on a 4-year evaluation as opposed to 2-year for moving up. I'd suspect, although I don't have direct proof, is that the idea was to "hurry up" and get P/Ps SF'd up as soon as possible. The P/Ps that moved up in the first round, most likely would have also garnered enough points over four years early on ... think LCC, Scecina and Cathedral. Later on Lutheran. Frankly, I'd be OK with using four-year cycles to move up and a two-year cycle to move down. i think that would better address the issue of programs versus a couple good teams and also minimize the negative impact on a team that maybe had a good team for three years based on a unique pairing of kids as opposed to a program. Second big mistake was requiring 4 points to stay originally. If it had been 2 points, looking at just LCC, they would not have returned to 1A to pick up a state title in 2015. The question is also, in those couple years when LCC returned, Pioneer was having a phenomenal run. That's pretty much what kept LCC in 1A for an additional half decade or so. Had LCC stayed in 2A, they picked up two points in their first visit, would they have been able to pick up sectional titles in those next three classification cycles? Haven't looked at the details closely, but the last four years since LCC returned to 2A, LCC has picked up three sectionals and a regional, so it's possible. In which case, LCC would have been absent from 1A since 2012 and not have picked up an additional two blue rings. The last issue is the recent monkeying with the points to stay up and moving it from 2 to 3 points. Again, I suspect this is directed at making sure that public schools don't spend any more time up a class than they have to; especially if the issue that we've almost all complained about is SF "punishing" programs for the success of a couple of team years. I think if you got SF'd and you can pick up a pair of sectionals the first two years that you move up, especially if we went to a 4-year move-up cycle, I think it's fair enough to say that a program is competitive and leave them there. I think that the 3-point rule is going to lead to additional yo-yoing that is going to make getting to some desired equilibrium much harder. Just my 2-3 cents take on it.

It is a kinder, gentler Catholic education. I heard the nuns have now moved to non-corporal correction as opposed to the rulers wielded like Crusaders back when I was in Catholic grade school.

You're mixing at least a couple of different concepts together which aren't the same. Controlling for admissions standards is distinctly different than the accusatory reduction of enrollment for athletic purposes ... and again, I think it's a leap to try to co-mingle the two to make an accusation. As for why they don't, the number of folks who send their kids to private schools SOLELY for the religious aspect, is not a majority. Some do it solely for tradition and/or religion, but I can say that most look at that as an ADDED item. They are looking for academics and a private school that can't deliver on academics will falter regardless of religion. Again, having sat in the pews during enrollment week and again, coming from traditional Catholic education families, I've now lived in four different states and not in any one of those states have I ever heard of or seen a Catholic school limit numbers for athletics. No, that's your conjecture. At least be big enough to say that, in your opinion that's what you think. I gave two SPECIFIC instances using two SPECIFIC schools where the foundational argument that you were making to make an accusation, population increase in an area coupled with decrease in a school's enrollment has some artificial correlation. As @Bobref is fond of saying, and applies in this case, "Correlation does not equal causation." By your logic, Providence was willing to give up over $800,000 in tuition just to drop down to 1A to win a (maybe) pair of state rings only to be thrust up into 2A on an SF charge is equally laughable. And again, it's interesting that the basis of the accusation is conjecture, whereas there has been details shown that poke big holes in the foundational argument for accusation that you are making. I'll give you another specific example to disprove the idea: Traders Point Christian. Started out in IHSAA ineligible for tournament in its early years due to newness. First year they were eligible they had 128 students in their whole school. Never really got much bigger. If the numbers are so easy to pickup, and these folks are out in the same neck of the woods with Pike, Westfield, Zionsville, Brownsburg, and Lebanon ... with those first four schools, 5A and 6A level, being less than 10 miles away ... why wouldn't Trader's Point Christian control their numbers upwards of 200 students to be able to dominate 1A football? Matter of fact, they've gone in the opposite direction and opted to now play 8-man ball. This is a team that, adding 200 folks from the 2nd/3rd string coffers of Westfield and Brownsburg, would easily run roughshod over 1A.

And they are still there! LCC's campus is still JHS/HS. In 2017-2018 enrollments, the IHSAA had LCC at 291 students and this this past classification, six year's later, it has them it has LCC at 302. In essence, LCC's still not back to where it was almost 45 years ago in enrollment. As one of those "captive" parishioners during the enrollment season, I can attest to the fact that, if LCC could get another 200 of its own parishioners to enroll, and find a place to put the junior high kids, they'd do it in a heartbeat.

This seems like quite a different proposition than a p/p. For a public school, the lights stay on regardless of the number of folks in the classroom or at the school ... at least down to a bare minimum. In addition, the public school stays open, even if operating at a deficit provided that the county, district, or whatever entity is willing to sustain it or counter it by borrowing from other services, issuing bonds, etc. It's kind of like the government; just about every year we operate at a deficit, yet the country stays open. P/Ps are, to coin a phrase on deficit spending, like a regular household; don't pay and the lights go out. I do find it interesting that the idea that a P/P might do it is conjecture based on what a public school is doing. And, yes, I do think it's a leap to lay that on Providence as, if they really are doing that, 6 students is not a smart margin to play with unless you are privy to all the enrollment swings and movements of 1A and the bottom half of 2A. Recall that more programs dropped into 1A this last reclassification than jumped up to 2A and another four became eligible in 1A for the tourney. Whomever is "controlling" that enrollment deserves a raise to stay in 1A with just a 6-student margin and all of the other movements and unknowns. The leap just doesn't pass the smell test, much less the numbers test ... especially given that Providence's freshman and sophomore classes are at least 25% larger than their junior and senior class.

That's an interesting leap. LCC is in Tippecanoe County. Between 1974, the year LCC won its first state title after opening its doors in 1956, and 1990, the population of Tippecanoe County grew by roughly 11.6%. By contrast, the state of Indiana's population growth was roughly 3.5% in the same timeframe. By 1990, the Bishop was announcing that due to lack of support and enrollment, LCC would be closing it doors at the end of the 1989-1990 academic year. Only an 11th hour appeal convinced the Bishop to keep the doors open. LCC is still nowhere close to its upper enrollments in its heyday. @Tippy, I believe, has posted what the rough enrollment numbers were back before the 1990 pre-closure announcement. Similarly, Secina was a 2A school back in 1990 and 1991 when they won back-to-back 2A titles. At that time, Indy's population was 920,000. Scecina's enrollment dipped after that and they still remained in 2A for a while, with 1A enrollment, before finally dropping down to 1A around 2007. In that same timeframe, Indy's population rose to around 1.4 million people. It wouldn't be until 2012 before Scecina would find itself back in 2A, but because of SF, not enrollment. It would be another few years or so after that before Scecina's enrollment growth would get it back to 2A. Those are just two examples that direct refute the idea that growing population in an area and a small program size somehow relate to "controlling the numbers." I'm pretty sure that most Catholics who attend parish masses have all been captive audiences as the local Catholic schools plead for kids to enroll ... and, at the same time, at least in Indiana, I can pretty much say that I've NEVER heard any of the parochial programs EVER claim that they NEED or WANT to limit their enrollment ... especially not to stay in 1A or move down a class in football.

I'm not sure it's an issue of recruiting. When we moved to Lafayette, my wife and I had decided that we'd enroll the kids in Catholic school here. I'd just returned to being a practicing Catholic and my wife was in the process of converting. She was so taken with her faith journey, that she wanted the kids to have that base level of faith in, at least, their early education. Both of my parents attended Catholic schools ... my mom got her college degree from a Catholic university and my dad attended Catholic U for a couple of years before leaving to join the Air Force. Most of my parents siblings also attended Catholic schools. My sister and I attended Catholic school until I was in 7th grade when we moved into an area without a Catholic school close by. In essence, it really was the family "tradition" to attend Catholic school as opposed to being recruited to said schools. With all of these items, we actually sought out the Catholic school system rather than being "recruited." While there may be more "conscious" comparisons of Catholic schools to public schools in the determination of education, I think there are LOTS of families that fall into the same mold that we did in that it's just "the way" as opposed to a specific compare/contrast/recruit situation.

Is North Judson that good or did AC get all of the talent in the county?

2 POINT GAMES Crown Point @ Westfield Brownsburg @ Center Grove Merrillville @ Warsaw Decatur Central @ Bloomington South East Noble @ Mishawaka Martinsville @ New Palestine Garrett @ Fort Wayne Luers Batesville @ Heritage Hills Adams Central @ Andrean Linton @ Lutheran South Adams @ North Judson South Putnam @ Providence

I don't think it's that far off though as their 3A seasons have typically been ended by eventual state champs in those years.

Same is roughly true for LCC, except at a much smaller level. There are three elementary schools, one K-3, one 4-6, and one K-6, that feed into LCC Junior/Senior High. Guerin is technically in the same diocese as LCC, the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana. There are only two Catholic high schools on the whole diocese. No one though travels from Lafayette to attend Guerin and no one travels from Noblesville to attend LCC, so the elementary schools that feed into each tend to be isolated from each other.

I assume they are eyeballing it. Could you imagine the optics of a grown man with a tape measure on a football field anywhere near the front of a teenage boy's towel? Lord, I apologize for that there.

About the closest that Tippecanoe County has gotten to that is LCC and West Lafayette both winning state back in 2009. In 2015, they both appeared at LOS, but West Lafayette lost to Chatard that year while LCC beat Linton. I'd be happy if we'd have a shot at three, but with Harrison bumping up to 6A, McCutcheon not making it out of sectionals typically, Jeff seemingly stalling out at sectional crowns, at best, regardless of 6A or 5A, and a really long program build that awaits Faith Christian, I'm thinking Tippecanoe County is going to likely end up settling for the older glory days.

What I think is funny is that this is really is only getting traction as a discussion point nowadays with Adams Central. The first case happened over a decade ago and pretty much no one said anything about it when Scecina was the first, and only team until AC, to get bumped without a blue ring after back-to-back reds in 2011 and 2012. Incidentally, like AC, Scecina, after getting bumped without a win, ended up with 2A enrollment numbers anyway. Same, to an extent, for Linton, although Linton picked up a blue ring in the second visit on the way out of 1A, got SF'd, and then grew large enough to stay in 2A by enrollment.

It wasn't like LCC didn't have its opportunities, but it was amazing that the game was as close as it was with LCC giving away a fumble and three picks. There'll maybe be opportunity for four former 1As to be there again next year.

Andrean 20 - LCC 17. Final.

LCC with an incomplete pass on 4th and 12. Andrean takes over on downs with a minute left.

LCC throws it's third interception tonight and Andrean returns it to the LCC 3. LCC holds and pushes Andrean back to the 5. 4th and goal from the 5 for Andrean. Andrean goes for it and LCC intercepts in the end zone. 3 minutes and 80 yards left in game with LCC in possession.

Andrean retakes the lead mainly on the ground, but muffs the PAT. Andrean 20 - LCC 17 with 7:34 left in game.

LCC recovers an Andrean fumble on their own 15. Drives down the field and finishes the drive with a Henry 42-yard FG ... his longest this season. Knights lead for the first time tonight 17-14. End of Q3.