Bears62

Lafayette Jeff 51 Michigan City 33 Final Jeff 429 rushing yards

Lafayette Jeff 22 Michigan City 7 1Q Harrison 16 Plainfield 7 Half West Lafayette 27 McCutcheon 3 3Q Guerin Catholic 33 LCC 3 3Q Eastside 21 Adams Central 17 4Q HSE 24 North Central 0 Half Westfield 21 LC 14 Half Pike 17 Fishers 14 3Q Ben Davis 30 Avon 13 3Q Penn 17 Portage 0 Half

Mooresville Adams Central Carroll Roncalli Cathedral Owen Valley LaVille Crown Point Reitz Brebeuf

How New Pal isn’t receiving all first place votes and apparently received enough 3rd or lower votes to be ranked below Roncalli is head-scratching.

Really? BD kept it real close with Brownsburg. Avon came back late to make it close with LN, who I imagine is a few steps below BD. And BD won by 24 last year in the regular season

Rensselaer Seeger Twin Lakes Tipton West Lafayette Western Boone Cass Eastern Hamilton Heights CC Tri-County Sheridan

Back for another week, tons of great games all around the state. Drop your predictions or let me know if you think any of my spreads are way off. GOTW: Cathedral(-8) at Brownsburg Ben Davis(-23) at Avon Brebeuf(-14) at Tri-West Carmel at Center Grove(-10.5) Castle(pk) at Evansville Mater Dei(pk) Chesterton at Warsaw(-6) Columbus East at Columbus North(-9.5) Crown Point(-3) at Andrean Decatur Central at New Pal(-14.5) Detroit King (MI)(-15) at Warren Central Eastside(pk) at Adams Central(pk) FW Dwenger(-8.5) at FW North FW Luers(-11) at FW Wayne FW Snider at FW Carroll(-5.5) Franklin Central at Roncalli(-7) Guerin Catholic at LCC(-4.5) Lafayette Jeff(-8) at Michigan City Lawrence Central at Westfield(-5) Lawrence North(-2) at Whiteland Lebanon at Zionsville(-20) Merrillville(-25) at Hobart North Central at HSE(-32) Northridge at Elkhart(-10) Penn(-15.5) at Portage Pike at Fishers(-8) Plainfield at Harrison WL(-4) Speedway(-7) at Indy Scecina West Lafayette(-34) at McCutcheon

38-10 BD 35-20 Cathedral 28-21 Roncalli 20-17 Westfield 45-14 Zionsville 35-28 Noblesville 49-7 HSE 21-16 Fishers

IMO Mooresville is too high.. I would still take Indy teams like LC, Zionsville, Pike, Chatard, Roncalli to beat them. Otherwise I think the list is great. Would also probably have schools like Merrillville and LC above Decatur Central but I think those would be closer games.

I think Cathedral is as good as advertised. I will give Jeff some credit, they competed better than I thought they would, just clearly overmatched. Cathedral’s offense is pretty loaded.

That's fair. I don't think anyone is doubting Warren can win, we'll see if 11 was too much tonight. I try to keep the spreads interesting. What would you create the spread at? Just curious

Too many points or not enough? I originally had it at -8 for CG and bumped it up a little

Been going back and forth on who I think wins this game. I know both lost a lot of key pieces form last year, truthfully I think WL ends up winning due to a longer-running culture of success. I set the line at -2 for Harrison because the raiders seem to be the more popular choice in pick 'ems

I did this last year for most weeks and it seemed to generate some good discussion so I've decided to bring it back for this season. I know some people frowned upon the idea of creating fake point spreads for high school games, but I truly don't see the harm in it and think it gets people excited about games. For those who aren't familiar with spreads, I will provide an example: Indiana at Purdue(-10). This is saying that Purdue would be favored by 10 points. It could also be written as Indiana(+10) at Purdue. If Purdue were to win by more than 10 points, they would "cover". If Indiana loses by less than 10 or wins outright, they would cover. If Purdue wins by exactly 10, it would be called a "push". "PK" is slang for "pick 'em, meaning there is no point spread and the teams are considered to have an equal chance of winning. Feel free to let me know what you think about some of these spreads or drop your picks for some of the games. It's week 1 so bear with me, a lot of these teams I do not have much info on besides how they did last season. There are tons of great games this week so some are going to get left out. This is just for fun, any input is appreciated. Co-GOTW: Westfield(-4.5) at New Pal Co-GOTW: Warren Central at Center Grove(-11) Andrean at Merrillville(-9.5) Avon at Lawrence North(-2) Brownsburg(-4) at Ben Davis Fort Wayne Carroll(-6.5) at Fort Wayne Luers Evansville Memorial(pk) at Jasper(pk) Fishers(-9) at North Central Fort Wayne North at Fort Wayne Snider(-8) HSE(-7) at Lawrence Central Harrison WL(-2) at West Lafayette Cathedral(-38) at Lafayette Jeff Chatard(-13.5) at Brebeuf Jesuit Louisville Trinity at Carmel(-4.5) Mount Vernon at Noblesville(-8.5) Valpo(-4) at Penn Zionsville(-8.5) at Pike Columbus North at Decatur Central(-19) Elkhart(-11.5) at Concord Hobart at Chesterton(-7.5) Kokomo(pk) at Leo(pk) Michigan City(-18) at Warsaw Speedway(-2.5) at Covenant Christian Whiteland(-14) at Columbus East

Merrillville Brownsburg Chatard West Lafayette Linton-Stockton Center Grove Carroll Ev Memorial Cathedral East Central

Another example of why MaxPreps rankings are a joke. If every user on this site made a top 25 i don’t think there would be a single one worse than this. Besides maybe Piratefan.

Can’t speak too much on LCC. I’m sure they will be good as always, I do know that they are replacing some good players so I wouldn’t think of them as championship contenders for this season. WL will be good again too, but I don’t know if they’ll be as good as last season. Coach Fry is an easy top 10 coach in the state, top 5 for some people, so I’m not going to count them out on being a legit contender. I do know they’re losing their best player on each side of the ball. Still easy Hoosier Conference favorites. If they beat Harrison week 1, I would like to think they’re a top 3 team in 3a.

“Region good” is good enough to win 5a this year. Biggest threat out of Indy is Decatur Central? DC is strong and worthy of being called a contender, but if that’s the toughest Indy school Merrillville has to face, they are thrilled. I see the FW schools as bigger threats than DC too. DC isn’t a traditional Indy school playing other powerhouses each week. DC’s and Merrillville’s conference schedules are pretty similar in terms of how tough they are. And that Chatard team was pretty damn good. Definitely a disappointing effort from the Pirates that week, but there was a lot of good teams Chatard would have done the same damage to.

Naive, that’s a good one. News flash: Carroll isn’t in 5a. It doesn’t matter if Carroll was just as good at Merrillville last year. 5a is extremely watered down compared to recent years. Maybe “clear” would have been a better choice than “easy”, but either way, if Merrillville isn’t your preseason favorite for 5a, maybe you should do some deeper research.

Harrison is losing some key players from last year. I don’t know if people are aware of that or not but people should pump the brakes on them when it comes to being a legit contender. They will take a step back this season. Merrillville is the easy favorite in my books. They’ve still got a couple studs coming back and they’re arguably the hottest program in 5a now. After them, Snider, Dwenger and Decatur Central should be the next best teams.

I have been going back and forth on 4a, but I think I have landed on New Pal as my favorite to win it. I know Brebeuf lost a lot, don’t know how Roncalli will be but I’m sure they will be one of the top teams as well. Memorial and East Central should be up there too. We will see how Kokomo does, they’re only 4 years removed from a state title appearance. Definitely leaving some contenders out but 4a is probably the deepest class in terms of programs who can win it all.

Good to know, thanks. Don’t know if they will have the athletes to take down Jeff, but should be a good game. Can’t see either of those teams beating whoever comes out of sectional 2 though. I am happy that one of those teams will get a sectional to their name with Merrillville out of the picture. Both have solid programs

Does Crown Point return a lot or what? I would be pretty surprised to see them beat whoever comes out of sectional 2, if CP were to even win their sectional (I don’t think they will).

I’m a strong believer in the benefits of being in a conference where every week you play a good team, but in my opinion, I think them getting booted from the HCC was the best thing that could have happened to them. Jeff, Harrison and McCutcheon were getting smoked by HCC teams on the regular. I think Jeff upset Avon in 2013 and McCutcheon beat Zionsville in 2014, but those might have been the only wins any Lafayette schools had against HCC schools since at least 2010. That’s about a 2-82 record against HCC schools between Jeff, Harrison and McCutcheon if my math is right. Getting back to my point, the Lafayette trio rejoined the NCC beginning at the 2015 season. Jeff then beat both Westfield in 2017 and Noblesville in 2018 sectional games. Both of those games were followed by (debatably respectable considering all things) losses to Carmel 41-20 and 41-21. Harrison hasn’t broken through by beating an HCC team yet, but they have put up decent efforts against Westfield and Zionsville in recent years. Also, if these teams never get booted, maybe Shanley never comes to Jeff and Peebles ditches for a school with greener pastures. Then these 2 programs would likely not be in nearly as good of a position as they are in now. You’re 100% correct when saying that this move boosted participation and definitely boosted morale within the programs. Both these teams have much more manageable sectionals, Jeff should be the favorite in theirs and Harrison should be the 2nd best team in theirs behind Decatur Central.

1. Jeff 2. Kokomo 3. Harrison