Lysander

5A was a punching bag for the best 4A teams…. The IHSAA “built” a class for those (generally wealthy school district) teams that said they could never compete with the likes of Carmel, Warren Central or Ben Davis. Needless to say, those 4A schools with ACTUAL football traditions ATE them up. BTW, I called this the week it happened….5A was a football wasteland comparatively.

Quite honestly, I don’t believe that….yet Roncalli will likely abort Chatard’s post season this year. 4A has been massively diluted overall under the Success Factor.

4A was clearly the best class (again “pound for pound”) prior to the Success Factor as Cathedral, Columbus East and New Palestine have made ABUNDANTLY clear in dominating a terribly (and expectedly) sad 5A Class. I’m happy our kids are in 4A but outside of Roncalli (who will likely end our season as a Top 10-15 team overall), I’m frankly pretty “meh” With that (outside of Chatard), I’ve most always been kind of a Gibson Southern guy but worry that they have sold their soul a bit these days.

The actual reality is that 3A has been the power class (“pound for pound” as they say) and where the competition could be found for the last several years since almost all the noteworthy 4A teams moved up in the prior best class (“pound for pound”). Chatard’s last 2 teams could well possibly have “clawed and scraped UNBOWED ” (important words, btw) into the State Championship in most ANY class. But, they are what they are…a bunch of disparate, EXTREMELY disciplined North Side CYO kids who didn’t succumb to the Cathedral All-Star BS and decided to stand on their own two feet and be their own person. They outplayed a loaded (5-12 D1 players depending on any given “”expert” pounding their chest about their greatness) Merrillville team quite handily and even seemed to even appear more athletic (they weren’t…by most any measure). To be clear, this is a school with 300-325 boys in total. They are not ALL football players by a long stretch yet they ranked 6th All Classes last year in 2020 (and, frankly, we’re a lot better in 2019). Carmel literally has 3,000 boys. I’m damn proud of these kids and although this might be a bit of a rebuilding year they might well shock the world just like last year. Who’s to say.? They owe no apologies

3A in the North last year (2020) at the very top was doubtlessly better than 4A or 5A (and would have competed with Westfield in the 6A North Championship based on the clear Chatard victory v. Merrillville)......VERY arguably 3A was better than 4A overall. Still, depends whether you look at class overall or just the top couple of teams in each class. Chatard is likely going to take its lumps this year as a 3A school playing a Top 10 schedule (please check their schedule for any doubters). If they win against Roncalli EITHER game it will be a minor miracle. Roncalli is a Top 5 Team all Classes this year. Elsewhere I read of 5-6 D1 players for Roncalli (it appears they are quite DISTANTLY approaching the annual Cathedral numbers of D1 players...yet still somehow still falling short of the 8-9, seemingly annual, D1 players for the Cathedral squad who somehow always seem to always struggle to "DO MORE WITH LESS"...say a prayer for the Cathedral folk). I'm not sure Chatard has EVER has ever peaked at more than 2 D1 players at any given time....perhaps twice in 30 years. Just poor Catholic CYO kids trying to get by....seemingly headed on an express train back to 3A. Thanks IHSAA for the expected pairings.

Count me a fellow conspiracist as well simply applying Occam's Razor. Heck....I was (apparently)right about the aliens too. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/pentagon-ufo-report-what-we-know.html

Honestly, that game was a helluva lot closer than the final score. Chatard was wounded for the rest of the season following that bruising game and lost their lead running back (Nathan Cmehil….probably, with others, part of the reason for a coaching change at Ritter, btw) for the season. Just like Cathedral (who, along with Center Grove, is, again, a likely a Top 20 Team in the ENTIRE US), Roncalli will be even better this year….and they were a Top 10 team All Classes last year. No surprise Chatard and Roncalli being in the same Sectional….ie. Sectional 28 rinse and repeat.

I could be way off base on this, but I think WeBo could potentially win this Sectional. I keep remembering everyone talking about how youthful they were last year.

The result was a head scratcher (having seen GC twice live last year) BUT, if you saw the film, GC beat WL rather soundly in that game.

I agree. Kudos to them.

As many issues...or errr....quintessential “dislike” (being polite) that I might have for Cathedral and their ability to compete unrestricted...and, in my opinion, unfairly (an opinion shared, I think, with more than a few of those from Roncalli, Scecina, Ritter, Brebeuf and no few Publics) your comment is hogwash. Whatever I might think of them (along with so many others)....they aren’t IMG or LaLumierre....rather they are a single state version .....an “Indiana” version (rather than a “national” version) of IMG or LaLumierre isolated to a single State.

Cathedral will be even better this year than last year (they were “young” last year).....and they were just a minute away from being the best team in the State last year...falling late to a Top 10 team nationally (Center Grove). Add that Cathedral (and Center Grove) were both better than any team in Ohio last year.

Errr....apologies Bob. I needed to "express" myself. Just horrified, TRULY, of the historic death toll I anticipate from the current LEFT (and just what they are prepared to do)....not Liberals...I'm actually a Classical Liberal.

Errr...just when have you ever had any doubt that the LEFT wanted to slam down HARD on individual liberty (and freedom)? I, personally, have some slim modest preference for Freedom...but what the Hell do I know? I suppose the Gulag has free food...at least - frozen mastodon meat notwithstanding (see Alexander Solzhenitsyn). Makes me wish I'd never read Solzhenitsyn - at least I could be blissfully ignorant of the horrors ahead in our current path. But heck, what's several 100 million corpses in the pursuit of "ultimate human perfection" (read "personal political power") to the Left (see Mousey-Tongue and Stalin)? Let's all just get along. Some of us ACTUALLY want to.

Loooong article but (I think) well worth the time, though Larry Correia can be a bit brusque (I'm thinking @Impartial_Observer will love this if he is still to be found here). I won't even attempt to post the entirety of his blog post...I will just link it. https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/06/23/an-opinion-on-gun-control-repost/

Tech actually WAS building something in the mid-2010s. Anyone who watched their 2012 and 2013 teams would have recognized those teams as formidable despite their roughly .500 record (which was more than respectable given their schedule those 2 years). As I recall, they lost a nail-biter to Carmel one of those years. Then the wheels came off immediately thereafter and it was back to mediocrity. BUT there was a brief time when they demonstrated it WAS possible at Tech. I might not have used the phrase “work harder” that @Grover used but I absolutely agree with his point and what I think his intent was. Programs can change but it takes buy-in at every level...including and especially at home after school and practice is over. But “Working Harder” to me isn’t just simply about what kids do in practice - it’s about coaches, administrators, students and parents. The most difficult part in most any task is just getting started the right way with appropriate forethought, planning and tools followed by actual effort. Once started, the inertia then moves in the direction of success rather than the reverse. Not to continue to beat this drum but Publics like Center Grove and New Pal have shown the path. I won’t disagree that the socioeconomics make it a different (and more difficult) animal at Tech but they were on a successful path just a handful of years ago but it wasn’t sustained.

Its too depressing to imagine...... So would Rock Creek.

Agreed. That’s how we ended up with the 5A/6A split to start with. And guess what? Those “new” 5A teams STILL couldn’t win their own tailor-made class. Quality 4A teams came to dominate that class which was ripe for the taking. Maybe certain schools just “do” football better at the moment. Honestly, the success of Center Grove against the mega-schools seems to make all these arguments moot.

Agree with the first 3 paragraphs BUT (re: paragraph 4....such as it is) I don’t think plumbers, electricians, etc. are displacing ANYONE as regards salary scale. They were ALWAYS essential and making good money....more so today when there are even fewer of them. Some of the most successful businessmen I have met personally were “tradesmen”. I’ve worked for developers worth probably $100MM or more who had associate degrees. My (much-older) step-brother is/was a draftsmen with a high school degree who owns one of the largest commercial insulation companies in the Midwest. I’d trade him any day of the week for my paltry law degree vs. the homes he owns in multiple states. Add that he is arguably one of the nicest, wisest and most generous human beings I have ever known regardless of family.....who can still kick my butt in one-on-one hoops. Even worse, the guy looks like a film star. We attribute far too much to someone having a college degree versus someone who is simply smart and willing to work.

Well....that was what I was accused of. Honest to God, though, I just wanted to learn how to cook.

And they have been for probably the last 10-12 years....certainly the SIAC threads which used to be even more active when Reitz was on a tear. There do seem to be less SAC/Ft. Wayne posts the last year or so, though.

That’s pretty accurate. They are considered a private school whereas Chatard, Ritter, Roncalli and Scecina are Catholic Archdiocese schools (ie. funded in part by and beholden to the Indianapolis Catholic Archdiocese). As to the question above regarding vocational classes, I’m pretty confident that they don’t have “shop” class, etc. but does any single high school have that these days? Serious question. One of my kids took a cooking class at one time I believe. Which leads me to a story. I tried to sign up for a Home Ec class back in the day because I wanted to learn to cook and was called into the Office for it. It was literally scandalous. They never let me take the class as it turned out. I can barely warm an egg these days.

I’m liking Chatard’s schedule but I share some of the concerns expressed by Doc22 above. It’s arguably the best “in state” schedule I’ve seen from Chatard ever. I would very much have enjoyed watching the 2 most recent teams play this schedule. With that, we’ll see how the upcoming group rises to it.