HSFBFan64

I'm hearing scuttlebutt about Warsaw replacing the 2020 week one opponent, Huntington North, with an opponent whose toughness will help bolster the program long term. What's brewing out there? Has anyone heard the same? I'm very excited about the Mishawaka Cavemen coming to the NLC. They will be a particular boost to the quality of football, wrestling, baseball and cross country (to name a few).

I know this is a little late but I saw your comment on Walton. I'm a Tiger fan/parent and when I saw the kid play I realized why he had over so many tackles coming into the Regional clash. He was - to date - the best LB I had seen until I watched some of the state finals.

I don't get why Indiana towns/cities let their schools get so big without building another school. In the Columbus Ohio suburbs (Hilliard and Dublin to name a few) they went from one to two or three high schools each. The largest high school in Ohio is usually Mason (Cinci suburb) or Mentor (far East CLE suburb), and neither of those schools eclipse 3,500 in four-year enrollment. What really kills me is Indiana has about 60 percent of the population that Ohio has, but they have about 6-8 schools with larger enrollment than Ohio's largest two schools.

This is a great thread, DT... like a smorgasbord. Being a Tiger fan, I'll choose 1, and piggy back on this. This DOES take tame - weight room - New Pal is the benchmark - Tigers have begun contagion of pan-sport/pan-gender lifting culture... will it increase exponentially? - intangibles - Dynamic class of '19, can at least six-ten guys in classes of '20 & '21 own the room? - reloadable depth - replacing QB, FB, a great LT and six of the Orange Crush front seven... next man up! These are all promising right now. We'll see what happens. Exciting season ahead, opportunities start 3-Jun-19.

If Whitko were a stock, its value just increased. Good luck, Wildcats! Warsaw was a basketball school pre-Jensen, and people started talking about Tiger football in the late 90s and thereafter. WCHS also saw more basketball players add football to their wheelhouse.

To give you an idea of the respect for Snider, our HOF head coach had a JV game date open up and he scheduled Snider. He attended the game on a practice/Monday night, so it really meant something to him. Told the boys (I’m paraphrasing) if you’re going to be an elite 6A team this is the competition you must defeat to do so.

Agree... it's even worse in middle school where half the kids have the bottom of their already-illegible number tucked into their pants because the jerseys are HS hand-me-downs.

DT Ohio has shifted conferences due to travel, size of schools and competitiveness. But the latter of the three - when addressed to the affected/relegated school - is still “it’s not you... it’s me.” My HS alma mater is about 1/3 the size it was when I attended. They moved to a conference of schools with similar enrollment but it was really about their continued decline in athletics. On an upbeat note they’re very good academically, still. Indiana HS conferences have shifted a bit recently, but not as seismically as Ohio HSs in certain areas have. Maybe some conferences in Indiana need to consider realignment especially since class basketball is in place. One example in the NLC is Wawasee. They’re competitive in gymnastics, wrestling and softball. Otherwise??? Their enrollment has decreased and they might be better suited for the Northeast 8.

The mercy rule comes up for discussion at the outset of each FB season. Ohio's results showed that about approximately 1/3 of their games hit levels where the mercy rule is necessary (a certain point differential that triggers running clock except for change of possession and scores). The have over 700 schools paying football, and there are lots of lopsided scores. Many Indiana HS FB games end in lopsided scores, but the greater percentage of occurrences are in the smaller school classes. My proposal: 6A and 5A schools - no mercy rule - HCs among these schools have numerous non-starting seniors. The running clock cuts down the time available to them to get these seniors in the ballgame. These programs usually have plenty of bodies (and available quarters) for the JV, frosh and C games. 4A and below - mercy rule - lead greater than or equal to 30 points anytime in H2 results in the running clock. These programs end up using available quarters and bodies Friday night, creating a problem for the JV, frosh and C games that ensue. These class levels also have a greater amount of lopsided games. Review historical data with the naked eye in John Harrell; higher win margins, more lopsided scores, higher per-game/lower per-game offense and defense (respectively) scoring averages. On the other hand, in 6A S2 Chesterton, with its losing record, still maintained a defensive scoring average below 20 points in the regular season, not far below the other three teams who were all top ten in lowest points allowed in 6A. Then look randomly at smaller schools and specifically at Pioneer, Southridge and other small-school powerhouses. You'll see what I mean. Love to hear your thoughts. BTW don't get me started on seeding (chuckle).

Prescott is on board at Huntington North. They open with Warsaw. What's the over/under for the time the game ends? 8:40 p.m. EDT?

Good research! C-bus suburbs like Pickerington, Westerville, Hilliard, Dublin, Olentangy and Grove City have programs that make the football playoffs (top 8 in the region, not all inclusive). The district is still well-represented among its varying schools. This was one of my points for splitting a mega school that others actually articulated better than I did in my original rants.

Just Rules is correct. Carmel, similar to some Columbus suburban schools, would have just as much talent among two or three high schools if they split. The splits in Columbus have not decreased their competitiveness. My enrollment beef is not about unfair competition. It's about 5,000 kids and one point guard much like Just Rules mentioned.

They’ve (West) experienced growth since the 90s. I was at WPAFB 88-92. Butler County was growing back then too. Wasn’t shocked when I saw a Lakota East HS.

It looks like Amelia and Glen Este merger to form this new school. Four-grade enrollment is 2600. Other enrollments in ohsaa use grade 9-11 enrollment and split it between boys and girls. Mason has around 3500 high school students in four grades. Rule of thumb, if it’s IHSAA add boys plus girls and divide by .77 (consider some upper class attrition instead of dividing by .75). Just a wag.

I grew up in Ohio. Mentor was usually the biggest single high school in the state (I believe Mason is the largest now), but it has never spun off other schools. Schools in Dublin, Westerville, Hilliard, Grove City and Pickerington had far fewer students than Mentor, as did Worthington when they added high schools. Perhaps it was based on the caps you mentioned, proactively looking at projected increases from elementary/MS enrollments that were a harbinger to an upcoming cap. Who knows.

Since we are talking numbers, perhaps "prodigious" is a better word. Now, Imelda Marcos's shoe collection was... vulgar... beyond prodigious. Thanks.

(Warsaw fan) even more excited about this addition. MC has revived its program. They're fast, physical and appear to be constructively violent (thin-slicing from videos). This will be a test for our boys in the trenches, who continue to make great strides in the weight room. Our speedy, athletic DBs will be challenged, too. Warsaw graduated one starting DB this past season, and the contenders for meaningful minutes run deeper than the three likely returning starters. There are next-man-up opportunities on the front seven, too, and this will be an early test to see how well Warsaw reloads that group. The scrapping for positions open due to graduation will be very interesting to watch in the summer. I believe the staff likes to view preseason as an open canvas. The competitive pre-season will hopefully fuel the competitive regular season spirit.

Look at this snip of high schools in the Columbus, Ohio area (the Ohio Capital Conference)! C-bus and Indy are very similar in how they grew and in the size of townships and suburbs that surround the city proper. Do you see ANY schools with 5,000+ enrollments. This is not the full snip, but you get the gist? These schools are still very competitive and their teams, despite the split-up of the suburbs' school districts, go pretty deep in the state tournament brackets among various sports. I know consolidation is economically viable, but Indiana has at least ten to twelve high schools larger than any Ohio high school, and Ohio has nearly 4.5M more people, and a crummier funding system (millage) than Indiana has. I believe even the two HSE high schools (who get the split-up thing) have larger enrollments than any high school in Ohio. I believe this will not change things in Indiana, but it makes you realize how vulgar Carmel's enrollment looks when you see these schools, among even smaller suburbs than Carmel, handled their growth. Love to hear your thoughts. No opinion is wrong.

I get that.

Thank you for herding the cats on this issue. There is a precedent that is set for significant enrollment change, and we have yet to see a football team who played with heavy enrollment in a lower division actually do anything worthwhile in terms of state tournament advancement to make us change the way they do it. If they’re going to do that what’s the point in doing biannual enrollment figures? 2020 Elkhart will be competitive, not great!

What was the original intent of forming 6A? To keep the 32 largest schools in an elite meat-grinder class where almost every game would be a tough out. Look at 6A regular season margins of victory. Look at offensive and defensive averages. Not a lot of extremism, huh? Look among your 6A coaches. Most of them love being told they can’t do something (beat Penn, Carmel, the MIC). This alignment you propose is nice for the North but there will be even more grousing from the South and the MIC. The latter(s) are the biggest proponents of seeding. They were especially vocal after the ‘17 Penn-BD title game. There are only ten “true North” teams so all solutions are imperfect. Keep Carmel in NE Indy in S4 and strive to beat them, move two HSE schools to S3 and strive to beat them as well. All the folks looking outside-in with excuses have to wipe away their tears and manage their expectations.

The points made that Elkhart WILL NOT move up in enrollment in the midst of the two year tranches are correct. If that were the case look at the growth Arsenal had YOY with Indy schools shaking up things. They didn't move them in mid-cycle. So the new, bigger "one Elkhart" will be a very (very) big 5A school in 2020... just like Arsenal was (and Zionsville for that matter). I don't see them getting past Michigan City, Mishawaka (moved up to 5A), FW Dwenger (moved up to 5A) or even New Pal (RETURNING three D1 recruits) with the bigger enrollment and larger selection. Athletic, though they are, still some holes on those lineups in "One Elkhart."

The Warsaw Tigers are, at the very least, intriguing to watch because they're on the radar. Can't hide this year! The buy-in among the seniors on the 2018 squad had a contagion among all four participating grade levels. The seniors on that squad had a rough start their freshman year, but most of them learned how to win while playing big roles on the JV squad, and they became great off-the-field citizens. They had great personalities. The "Tiger Talk" interviews were unmatched by any previous recent year. You have a few obvious leaders on field returning in 2019, almost the entire offensive line, almost all your halfbacks (you can't swing a dad cat without hitting a talented returning halfback or split end) and a few players eager to step into roles vacated by graduation. These fellas, though, have much different personalities from this last season's senior bunch. However, the staff knows what it takes to get the best out of each senior class. They are probably already looking for leaders in the weight room. That's where it started last year. Most of those guys on the 2018 7-3 team were one-year/two-year JV starters and intermittent role players champing at the bit for their upcoming bigger Friday night role. At least a dozen of them were insane in the weight room, and they took ownership long before June conditioning opportunities began.

I like your projected sectionals for the most part, but I actually see Noblesville and Westfield going to S3, not the HSE schools. They are geographically "more North" even though Westfield is not located off I-69. I originally projected HSE and Noblesville in an e-mail volley I had on the 14th, but then I realized, as you pointed out as well, school districts (e.g. HSE) don't get split into different sectionals. I feel there is no chance for any school in the South to move North because it usually goes the other way in the Region's corridor according to a very wise source. The South is overflowing to the North, and there are only ten "True Northern" teams (all S1 and S2, Carroll and Homestead in S3).