Bobref

“Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.” — Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience

In principle, I agree. In reality, the logistics of holding the entire tournament at neutral sites precludes that option. And I thought “fairness” was the goal here. Teams that have made it to the Regional have a legitimate shot at contending for a state championship, so all teams from that point on should be treated as equal, as long as our tournament is all in, unseeded, and random draw. Now, if you want to really talk about actually earning home field advantage in the tournament by your regular season performance, I am completely on board with this. You don’t like “participation” trophies? Neither do I. What do you think awarding a team a home semistate game when they have done nothing more than their opponent is - that’s a “participation” trophy by any other name. And what on earth makes you think you can’t get a “big game” atmosphere at a neutral site? It happens all over the country every year ... except in Indiana. Arguably, neutral sites produce a better “big game” atmosphere because more people can attend due to the reduced travel time. This is just another example of sacrificing a way to make Indiana football better in order to preserve a “feel good” vibe for some unknown school that gets to host a regional once every 40 years. It’s thinking small, taking the tunnel vision view instead of looking out for the good of high school football in Indiana as a whole.

To describe this logic as “fuzzy” is being charitable. How does your logic square with the randomness of who gets home field advantage? There isn’t any real dispute that home field confers an advantage. Why should one “winner” get it and the other “winner” not? If you can’t entitle yourself to a home game by your performance, then you haven’t earned a thing, except the right to play another game. If you don’t have the right to complain about a 3 hr. drive, then you have no logical right to object to a neutral site.

Posted 1 hour ago

Saw some interesting stats this morning. Bears are last in the league in points scored and second last in yards per game and yards per play — with Foles starting at QB. Time to blow it up, starting with Pace. You swing and miss on a franchise QB you took that high, no GM can survive that. Let the new GM hire his own coach. Go from there.

Sure. And while we’re at it, rip out all the artificial turf, get rid of the lights because football was meant to be played in daylight, and reinstate leather helmets.

I don't know, but Harbaugh makes over $7 million/yr. At that price tag, they'll have plenty of applicants.

Some people are just better suited to the pro game. That’s all.

I worked a sectional final between the two at Pioneer in 2005. LCC came from 2 scores down, assisted by the Pioneer coach making an arithmetic error and thinking he could knee it out, but ended up having to give the ball back. LCC then scored on the last play, went for 2 and made it to send the game into overtime. You can guess the result. We weren’t too popular in Royal Center that night. Our van had a flat tire when we came out of the locker room after the game, and while we were changing it, they turned out the lights in the parking lot. 😂🤣

Great atmosphere at LCC. Always enjoyed working there. I expect they will be good hosts to the visitors, as well. What are the limitations on fan attendance, and how well do you think SA fans will travel?

That’s two consecutive impressive games by Book. Dare we hope that he has finally turned the corner, and become the guy who can win a big game, rather than just play not to lose it? And that new receiver group is really beginning to jell. Now that the Skowronek kid from Ft. Wayne is healthy, he’s turned into a real big play guy.

All true. But make no mistake, Chatard will bring it, travel notwithstanding. They always do. One of a handful of programs I can say with 100% certainty will show up under any circumstances and give an amazing effort. In case you can't tell, I'm a big admirer of their program. Reminds me a great deal of my old days at St. Ed's.

The best high school game I ever worked was the 2002 sectional championship between 11-0, #1 ranked Chatard, and 11-0, #2 ranked Danville. Danville scored with seconds left, went for 2, and didn’t get it. The physicality of that game, a packed house, the de facto state championship game, all came together for a great high school football experience. That game was no place for the faint of heart, I assure you. They could only hope to approach that this time. But it should be a great football game.

The rest of the B1G hopes you’re wrong.

So 4 teams in each class have "earned" the right to host a semistate, but only two will get to host one? Doesn't that "take away community pride and accomplishment," too? What if a team gets a regional championship because the opponent got "Covided" out? Have they earned it then? The reality is that with the total randomness involved in the draw and the determination of home field, nobody earns anything in our tournament except the right to play another game and, if you're the last man standing in your class, that trophy. But this is the lamest argument against neutral semistate sites that I can imagine.

Doesn't someone have to be the visiting team at the semistate?

For now, our sights are set a little higher than that.

“Hurdling is an attempt by a player to jump (hurdle) with one or both feet or knees foremost over an opponent who is contacting the ground with no part of his body except one or both feet”

Just give Pioneer a little credit. I suspect their play had something to do with Andrean’s difficulties.

Interesting that the first word in your post is “respectfully,” and then you go on in your zeal to call out the Andrean coaches and disrespect a very worthwhile opponent. Apparently, Pioneer’s players and coaches had little to do with the outcome, it was all just a colossal series of screwups by Andrean. I strongly doubt it.

I still see no logic to a contention that this heralds some sort of a sea change in Indiana high school football that is “long term” in nature. We haven’t even completed a single season following the pandemic. That must be a really special crystal ball you’ve got there. Settle down. If things have changed to the point where some kind of adjustment is necessary, we can do that. But this sort of knee jerk reaction to information that is incomplete, at best, is just alarmist

Disagree.

My memory’s not that good. Don’t remember how we got to the field. I do remember we skated back to the locker room on the ice.

Coldest for me was Nov. 10, 2006. Regional at New Prairie, hosting Norwell. Temps in the low 50s when we got there. We finished our pregame and got dressed. When we walked out of the school, the temperature had dropped 20 degrees and it started raining. We went back in, changed to our cold/wet weather gear and went back out. The rain was coming down sideways from the start and the temperature kept dropping. The field was a quagmire. By the time we got out there for the 2nd half, the mud ruts in the field had started to freeze. There’s cold, and then there’s wet cold. Norwell had a QB named Chandler Harnish who went on to great things at Northern Illinois. On that field, he just couldn’t be stopped. After the game, I took my white knickers and striped socks and just threw them in the trash.