Tend to agree in principle. The top of 3A was definitely better than the top of 4A last year. Whether that is the case this year remains to be seen. It’s still way, way early.....
Automatic deference to 4A teams is problematic to me particularly when historic powers in 4A (Cathedral, CE and Dwenger) and the “relatively” new power in 4A (New Pal) are all now in 5A.......4A just ain’t what it used to be. The inference is that the second tier teams in 4A (if 4A was unaffected by the Success Factor) are better than the upper end 3A teams - which hasn’t been the case historically and seems doubly incorrect now in light of the fact that 3A is (or has been the last few years) probably the best class pound for pound.
West Lafayette is likely either at or near the top of this ranking. They lost a hard fought game to 6A Lafayette Jeff who may be a top 10 team in the State.
This loss somehow makes WL 7th in this grouping?
No way.
I find it ironic that in the other thread about the overall rankings it has now (finally) become accepted (even popular) to say that New Pal, as a team almost 1/4 the size of the largest schools in the State, could be the best team in the State (not sure I am there yet this year, personally, but I have argued almost alone in years past that I believed they were the best team in the state - just too early to tell so far) yet we fall back into the same old fallacy that 4A is always better than 3A, 3A is always better than 2A, etc...