Esso Ayche

The NP varsity knocked our GS JV out in the small bracket semifinal 9-6, and went on to outlast Mooresville JV in the final to win the small division. They were a tough bunch, more physical than we'd really seen most of the day. The GS varsity took home the big bracket. Indeed.

I 100% agree that the sample size is too small to get a full, meaningful grasp. Without a doubt. For me it was a starting point (10 year sample size) to get my head better wrapped around the conversations, and that three year window just happened to fit into it. I would someday like to jump back another decade or two (or three?) to pick up a bigger representation across the board. It was very interesting for me to dig into the numbers/results and, truthfully, see who these teams were losing to. It is one thing to see who is winning, but I find it much more interesting to see who was on the cusp of winning. So many great teams that just get stuck behind a juggernaut of a team/program and can't break through that ceiling. Like you said, I'm sure there a lot of sectionals that have zero PPs, and many with multiple... that would be an interesting secondary, parallel study to see how many PPs are in the average "non-zero" PP sectionals... and how they collectively fare compared to those that don't have other PPs down the line until regionals or semi-state. 28 comes to mind as a heavy PP sectional. I'm certain there are many others. Still, I find that three year window (no matter how fortuitous to my sample) to be a very fascinating snap shot, whether it was PPs or publics doing that work. Three years, four schools, twelve titles. Amazing. Across 50 states, I'd be interested if there have been comparative three year dynasties across four classes of football like that. I'd bet not, but honestly I don't keep up with much beyond SWI... and barely that! I appreciate the constructive feedback, for certain. I knew going into it that there was not nearly enough information in the greater scheme of things to come to any meaningful "conclusion" in the overall conversation. I know without a doubt there are a huge number on here who know this topic (and all the gory details) inside and out, but I found some of these numbers (sample size be damned!) too compelling not to share for those that might not have been around in those days (I can't be the ONLY transplant, can I??). Plus, it got me out of putting up Christmas decorations with my wife... because from across the room all spreadsheets look like real work!! (And honestly, who puts up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving??)

After slogging through this discussion over the past several days I thought I would do a little digging and give myself more background on the topic (I know, weird). Admittedly, I am not an Indiana native, and over the past decade or so I've had to peruse my way through many-a websites, forums, almanacs, and more to try to keep pace with the ins, outs, abbreviations, and nicknames (I still can't read a STC thread on the EIAC to save my life)... let alone feel brave enough to post confidently in any PP-themed topic. So today I did what I do best: Look up a bunch of stuff, put it in a spreadsheet, and try to make sense of it. Some (most? all?) of it may not be completely relevant to the topic at hand, but I at least want to share the empirical data that I was able to glean out of my research. Frankly, it was very interesting to me and I'd hate for it to go go to waste for anyone who is like me... interested, but ignorant. I'm assume much of this has very likely been covered in bits and pieces all over this forum over the years, but I feel compelled to share this non-biased information (these are those fact-things people keep talking about) to those that might appreciate it and may not be aware of everything out of this particular set of data. This isn't a resolution, just information. To start I put a time frame on it, somewhat arbitrary, but hopefully enough to at least gather a representative sample size. So the past ten years of Indiana football, 2010-2019. I broke out all of the PP schools listed at the start of this thread, separated by current enrollment (no SF figured in, just enrollment for a base line), and then proceeded to populate the schools' post-season results. I used Almanac Sports (I can't thank this man enough for putting THAT thing together) to populate the spreadsheet, year by year, to see how well each of the schools did in any given season. I also tried to help myself understand how teams were beat, versus how far they went. For example, for 2015 Brebeuf I note "LS Chatard" so that it told me "Lost Sectional (to) Chatard" and I could at least see that, while they may have been knocked out early, it was by the eventual State Champs. It has pretty colors, all that jazz. Someone's probably done this before, but hey, I had free time and a beer or two in the fridge. Anyway, what I was most surprised to find (and maybe/likely not a shock to many/most) was the 2010-2012 back-to-back-to-back State Championships from 1A LCC, 2A Luers, 3A Chatard, and 4A Cathedral. Not being from here, remember, I have little to no background on the history of football in the state, so this was a bit of a shocker. I mean, I've known they were good in stretches and all that. But this? I'd be interested to dig deeper on these dynasties going back another decade, but I'm not that big of a masochist. Maybe. We'll see. To put a finer point on it, 12 of the 15 State Championship games (the other three being won by the 5A schools of Fishers, Carmel, and Lawrence Central in that span) were by four teams. That's 80% for those keeping track at home. Now, it looks like there are about 20 PP schools right now and about 300 public schools (I know, some ebb and flow with schools over the decade, but bear with me for the sake of keeping things mathematically easy from 2010 to 2019). That means ~6% of the teams are PP and ~94% public. Out of that whole 100% (320 schools), 1.25% of the teams in Indiana won 80% of the football State Championships in that period. OR, if you take the 5A out of the equation since they were still playing by class... 1.25% of the teams in Indiana won 100% of the championships they were able to play for. That blows my mind. I'm not passing judgement here, I'm looking at this very objectively... with a very blown mind. Not to mention the State Runner Up teams... in the 1A-4A sample, that's 19 PP teams playing for 12 championships... only five public schools were even in the mix. Crazy. So then comes 2013 and all the "fixes" (equalizers?) that were brought to the table. To be fair, it did look to shake things up on the spreadsheet. Maybe not enough if you're in one camp, maybe too much if you're in another camp. No camp has said it has been perfect, to the best of my knowledge, and that's not what brought me here anyway. I just wanted some data and background. In the past seven years 1A has seen five different champs (four of them public); but LCC still added two more trophies after a short stint in 2A. 2A has seen five new champs, four of them public, and none of them Luers again. Ritter was able to bring home two in Leurs' absence. 3A has had three public schools win in the past seven years, but Chatard keeps doing Chatard things (two more 3A trophies), Memorial added one, Andrean added one. In 4A there have been six different champs in the past seven years, three of them public. Dwenger added two to the case, Roncalli added one, and Memorial added one. 5A has seen stints from Roncalli, Cathedral (back-to-back 5A champs), and Dwenger, but otherwise has had four public schools share the other five trophies. 6A had a two year stint from Cathedral, and doing pretty well at it. No hardware. Yet. In the first sample (2010-2012) the PPs make up 80% of all State Championship winners, 63% of all SSC winners, 42% of all RC winners, and 23% of all Sectionals Champs. Since 2013, PPs now make up 33% of all State Champs, 25% of all SSC, 23% of all RC, and 18% of all Sectional Champs. The SF has certainly changed the landscape at the very top level, but there are still years where PPs (6% of the schools) bring home 50% of the State Championships (three times in seven years, to be exact). But what I find interesting is that the sectional champion piece of the pie really hasn't budged much (was 23% in 2010-2012 to 18% in 2013-2019). The rest of the hardware take home, by round, has more than halved, but sectionals are still somewhat similar. I can't quite wrap my head around what to infer from that yet. Perhaps sectional alignments and SF bumps just let another PP fill the void where they normally have trouble getting that Sectional win. Swap a great PP for another really good PP, so to speak. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride... until SF. Frankly, there is quite a bit on the spreadsheet with SF points, etc. that made it very interesting for me, but I don't know that muddying the waters further at this point with more numbers really advances the conversation. Much of it probably covered elsewhere at some point in the past, but I did enjoy working through each team's history, line by line, to bring myself a little more reference to these threads. Again, this isn't an argument one way or the other, but more of a "Hey, I was today year's old when I learned this...". Nor is it an exhaustive work... I could have certainly missed some things since I didn't proof anything, plus I'm no statistician in the mathematical sense. I think it is fairly accurate, but don't go citing me in your thesis any time soon. TL;DR version... PPs are good at football, collectively. SF dampened the top end of PP state champ dynasties. Sometimes.

We appreciate the opportunity for sure. This might be recent memory bias, but I think your NK team hit harder than we've seen all season. Hats to the ball all night, and hard. Definitely some very good linebacker scraping that nipped what would have normally been big gains for our QB. Kept our running game in check for sure. Good blocking on your O side of the ball, too. Well disciplined and well executed on assignments... they all knew what their job was and they did it well. And I loved that horn on TDs! That must really get the crowd fired up on Friday nights. Pretty cool venue on the hillside there too. Good luck to your varsity the rest of the way!

True. Obviously not an outcome that either team desires. Boonville looked like they had size and speed out there, but some untimely mistakes let GS get way ahead in the first half. I think that may have brought BV morale down and impacted their second half performance. I look forward to seeing Boonville's 2024 squad build and improve in JV and varsity. It looked like they have good numbers in that class and I think they can get that trajectory moving upwards.

Gibson Southern Fr 36 Heritage Hills 14

Gibson Southern Fr 54 Boonville Fr 0 GS offense ran 11 plays from scrimmage and saw 3rd down once.

Currently the GS freshman team has Boonville 10/1 and HH 10/6, so I'm not sure we'll schedule another game that week. We do have an opening the week of the 12th, perhaps that's when they are working on scheduling it(?). I'm not sure on the inner workings, so it could certainly be any time. I would be eager to see a Reitz/GS matchup, and I think it will make for an exciting game. Like most everyone else, we're just happy to be playing football right now. Several of our kids waiting in the wings through MS football have stepped up across the board to fill in for starters that have left the team or have been out this season for various reasons (like many 2020 programs, to be sure), and it's been great to see them get the opportunity to show they can be successful in those spots. We also lost one of our go-to playmakers to varsity, so it's been weird not seeing him out there. But as we like to say out here in the corn fields... Next Titan Up! I hope Reitz/GS can get something worked out!

Gibson Southern Fr 20 Evansville North Fr 32 Gibson Southern Fr 42 Southridge Fr 24

I'm on board with the inventing football part 😁

*fan With air quotes.

Specifically, I saw a "vanilla" scheme that put hats on #5 all night behind a full strength BV o-line and #5 not being taken down on the first, second, or third hits. You're critical of the GS D coaching plan/calls (and apparently of the entire staff, punter, and probably the pep band at home games judging by your posts), but that "vanilla" scheme put the boys in position to make plays. But let's show all our cards regular season, by all means. Maybe we can forget the depth chart and start skipping over who takes RB reps on the gold squad. That freshman was NTU and secured the ball for his carry after getting hit in the backfield by two guys. Clock kept ticking. Got the W. Moving on to SR.

Well, fortunately for the GS defensive staff (and the GS football community in general) pink slips won't be coming tomorrow morning at weights, nor any time soon most likely. I watched the same game you did, however the game I saw had a solid D plan with players in position to make plays for the greatest majority of the game. To say otherwise is shortsighted, IMO. Mockabee is a specimen and just flat out showed tonight he belongs in D1.

Gibson Southern Fr 20 Mater Dei Fr 7

Monday 8/31: Gibson Southern Fr 50 Washington JV 8

Gibson Southern 49 Washington 0 Halftime score and final.

In my four-ish decades of watching HS football I cannot recall a tight to the goal line punt occur that wasn't a blatant touchback or not. Many were very, very close, but none that really needed an instant replay. I just saw one this week, stopped on the one foot (inch?) line, with the gunner laying half in the endzone. Huge uproar on the receiving team side of it, naturally, but the crew nailed it. Ball never crossed the plane. Had I not seen this post I would have been on the ignorant side of the rule book. With this information I was able to quell the uprising in my (socially distanced) section of the stands. Thanks, as always, for the great information!

No, lower level game earlier this year. Fortunately it was of no consequence on the final outcome... not a close game.

Emphatic! I like a confident answer 😁 I thought it was all sorts of sideways. My gut was right this time... it wasn't just the undercooked brat. Thanks!

First and ten on the A 40 yard line. A-28 fumbles at the A 45 yard line and B-56 scoops and scores. On the ensuing two-point try, A's game ball is still in play and the pass from B-9 is thrown well high and wide of the intended receiver by several yards. The QB immediately points out to the official that the ball was not B's. The officials quickly retrieve the B ball and each team lines back down to replay the try. In the confusion the A sideline assumes there was a pre-snap whistle or some other issue that stopped the initial try and they are waiting on a signal and/or explanation from the officials. Things move quickly and before anyone from the A sideline gets the attention of the officials for clarification the try is replayed successfully with B's ball. My gut says the try should be left as no good and move along to kickoff; it's B's responsibility to get in their preferred game ball... too bad, so sad. Is there anything about protesting the use of the wrong ball after the fact and getting to replay the down?