Bears62

Probably would have been better to wait until basketball seasons finishes but I went ahead and found out each 6a football schools record for basketball and football combined. Obviously not a power ranking for which school puts out the best team but interesting nonetheless. Combined record is in parentheses and win percentage is to the right, ranked by percentage. 6A. 1. Homestead (33-2) .943% 2. Lafayette Jeff (32-3) .914% 3. Carmel (29-5) .853% 4. Westfield (29-6) .829% 4. Lawrence North (29-6) .829% 6. Center Grove (26-6) .813% 7. FW Carroll (23-9) .719% 8. Warsaw (23-10) .697% 9. Columbus North (17-8) .680% 10. Brownsburg (20-10) .667% 11. Warren Central (22-12) .647% 12. Elkhart (21-12) .636% 12. Chesterton (21-12) .636% 12. Crown Point (14-8) .636% 15. Merrillville (20-12) .625% 16. HSE (18-13) .581% 16. North Central (18-13) .581% 18. Fishers (17-15) .531% 18. FW Snider (17-15) .531% 20. Ben Davis (19-17) .528% 21. Penn (16-16) .500% 21. Lake Central (16-16) .500% 23. Pike (14-17) .452% 24. Noblesville (13-18) .419% 25. Arsenal Tech (13-19) .406% 25. Perry Meridian (13-19) .406% 27. Lawrence Central (12-19) .387% 28. Portage (11-21) .344% 29. Avon (9-19) .321% 30. Franklin Central (10-22) .313% 31. Columbus East (9-20) .310% 32. Southport (7-21) .250% If I were to choose a top 3 for quality combined between the 2 sports I would most likely rank it: 1. Carmel 2. Center Grove 3. Westfield (slightly ahead of Lawrence North)

Have lived in the north for years, almost always root for whatever team is playing the Indy school. You don’t know me, I wanted Homestead to win. Nice excuse about a bus ride though. I’ll stick with the results on the field when I come to my conclusions. Don’t even think there’s an argument for SAC being better than the HCC. I know the HCC has bigger schools, that’s a part of the reason why they’re better. Same reason as why the MIC is king. The north is not what it used to be.

Disagree. You’ll have a hard time convincing anyone that the HCC has a “lack of defense.” 2 years ago HCC bottom feeder and 1-9 Noblesville took the SAC’s top dawg and undefeated team in Homestead to overtime in sectionals. I think there is a fairly decent gap between the talent level in the SAC and the HCC. HCC has better programs and better players all across the board. Sadly there has not been many matchups between the 2 conferences in the past 5 years. But reputation doesn’t mean a darn thing, everything is settled on the field and there is enough evidence to say the HCC is superior.

Who me? I want to see schools outside of Indy have success as much as anyone. But it’s pretty clear the HCC is better than the SAC.

Do you honestly think that the SAC is better than the HCC? I don’t think theres much of an argument. The HCC has been better from top to bottom as well as when you compare the best teams from each conference. Just look at last year SAC’s top 2 teams in Homestead and Dwenger during tournament play. Homestead got destroyed by Westfield and Dwenger lost to a Zionsville team that finished 3-4 in the HCC.

I agree with you that Lafayette/West Lafayette isn’t big enough to have different types of athletes across different parts of the cities. Though i do find it interesting that West Side has had great success and undoubtedly fielded the best team out of any of the schools during certain years despite the population discrepancy and not ideal demographics for a football team. But I truly believe Jeff has had/will continue to have better athletes due to a combination of the demographics and the fact that Harrison has a really good soccer program that steals some athletes away. Soccer and Wrestling are right up there with football as far as how big a deal they are to the school. And dating back at least a decade, Jeff has dominated the area in sprint events in track and field within the area. Harrison, West Side and Mcc all have have found more success in distance events.

Demographics and recent history. If you’ve watched these 2 play at all within the last 5 seasons, then u should understand. Harrison has not had better athletes than Jeff, instead they win by being disciplined. Hell they run the triple option.

Yes, all 3 have had their moments in recent times. I believe Harrison has consistently won the NCC award for overall performance across all sports for both boys and girls each year so it’s not like these 3 schools wouldn’t add depth to other conferences if they were to join. An unlucky location really holds them back

Fair, but if we’re being real about it, Jeff or Harrison will most likely never be able to field teams to beat a Carmel or CG type of football team. Jeff is at the bottom of 6a and Harrison is at the top of 5a in terms of students, it would take a special group of players to take down one of the big Indy dogs. And that’s no knock on them, they hover right around 2000-2100 students which is significantly less than the contenders in 6a every year. And I disagree that Harrison is closing the gap on Jeff. They’ve had close games with them the past 3 years or so, but just because they are growing in students doesn’t mean anything when it comes to on-field performance. Jeff is more than likely going to continue to have better athletes than Harrison. If Coach Shanley were to leave, then I could easily see Harrison overtaking them, they have a great program. The best thing that could happen for the Lafayette schools would be that the MIC and HCC see massive realignment between their schools that leaves the HCC with spots to fill.

I think if Jeff, Harrison and Mcc are not able to join a more premier, already structured conference, which is already pretty unlikely, the ideal conference setup would be: Jeff, Harrison, Mccutcheon, West Lafayette, Kokomo, Lebanon, Western and Logansport. I would bet Kokomo becomes a solid team within a couple of years, they are only a few years removed from a 5a state title game appearance. Western has been fairly solid for a while now and Lebanon has been at least somewhat decent recently. Not exactly a power conference, but it would give each schools 2 out of conference games and the Lafayette trio gets to dump cupcake games against Anderson, Muncie Central and Richmond. Travel would also be slightly better. Heck Logansport even won their sectional this year, they seem to be trending upwards as well

All 3 Lafayette schools should leave in my opinion... where to I’m not sure. The travel for them isn’t necessarily a staying point. A few of the schools are much further than Indy schools. Marion 1 and 1/2 hours, Richmond 2 hours, Muncie 2 hours, Kokomo 1 hour, Anderson 1 and 1/2 hours from Lafayette

Completely agree. As long as Shanley is there I don’t think Jeff will lose to Harrison unless Harrison has a special group. Jeff has had and will continue to have better athletes than the Raiders. Props to both of these programs for the success they have earned over the past 5 years

I just don’t see how they can at this point. They simply do not have the athletes to contend in 6a in the postseason. Last year was the best team they’ve fielded in a long, long time and they ran into a tough Merrillville team. They’ve had athletes for as long as I can remember but I think they really lack size across the board on the O-line/LB’s/DB’s every single year. I think they are at that 29-31st spot in enrollment for 6a so they really need some good fortune to get bumped down to 5a. And they’ve had competitive game against some of the big dogs across the state recently (Carmel, Westfield, Merrillville) and Shanley is doing about as well as a coach can do. He’s creative with his play calling and installs the confidence in his guys that they can beat anyone. I thought Jeff was solid this year until they played Merrillville and then i realized how much of a mismatch it really was. And Merrillville is not much bigger in enrollment than Jeff if I’m correct. it’s gonna take a real special group of kids for them to do anything big in 6a and that’s not a knock on them. They’re always gonna have to play a Carmel, a Merrillville, a Westfield, maybe even a Homestead and some of the schools up there someday in sectionals and that will always be a daunting task. A 5A move for them would be tremendous. They’ve taken down Westfield and Noblesville in recent years, stick them in that sectional with Zionsville and give Kokomo the boot and you’ve got a tremendous matchup every year.

Merrillville 14 Elkhart 14 3Q 4:00 LCC 37 Winamac 19 4Q Chatard 21 Concordia 10 4Q Marion 21 East Noble 17 3Q Hobart 24 Logansport 14 3Q Roncalli 35 Mt. Vernon 14 4Q

Ben Davis 27 Carmel 21 FINAL What a performance by the giants. Very little people saw the giants being able to win this game

Marion 14 East Noble 3 2Q LCC 23 Winamac 19 HALF Roncalli 21 Mt. Vernon 7 HALF Merrillville 14 Elkhart 0 2Q 4:35 Hobart 17 Logansport 6 2Q 7:32

Hobart 10 Logansport 6 end of 1st Quarter

Merrillville 14 Elkhart 0 2Q 11:55 Pirates looking strong early

Cathedral lookin strong early. Whiteland does look like they have some solid size on defense

Merrillville 41 Lafayette Jeff 14 2Q :44 No more updates from me on this one. Jeff’s schedule doing them no favors in this one. Also just do not have the athletes the pirates do.

Merrillville 34 Lafayette Jeff 14 2Q 2:43 Jeff with the ball across midfield desperately needs a score. Bronchos get ball at half. Merrillville QB Nelson with 4 TD’s and 248 passing yards before halftime

Merrillville 20 Lafayette Jeff 14 2Q 8:22 Merrillville getting ball back right now. Jeff getting exposed through the air right now, JoJo Johnson showing off his skills early in this one Homestead 17 Warsaw 14 HALF

Lafayette Jeff 14 Merrillville 14 2Q 11:05

Lafayette Jeff 7 Merrillville 7 1Q 1:43

Lafayette Jeff 7 Merrillville 0 1Q 4:32 Merrillville gets ball first marches down field with 5 first downs. Had a bad snap resulting in a 4th and 32, gets punt blocked. Jeff starts at midfield and scores in 7 plays all but one on the ground.