Bears62

Yes, it’s so simple how did no one know? The teams who can’t get to Lucas Oil just need to work harder. Nothing else should be considered a factor. You’d have a hard time convincing me kids from schools like Merrillville or Jeff want to win any less than CG. Or that they don’t work as hard. CG has many advantages over the bottom 8 of 6a.

I mean sure I guess you’re not wrong? But definitely not the point. You are the one on here who is confused, US31 tried to dumb it down for you but I guess it didn’t work.

Exactly. Nothing more nothing less

Dude, no one is trying to stop the big 3 and CG from winning titles lol. They are the best and deserve to win. LITERALLY, the only point of dropping the bottom 8 of 6a out is because those teams at the bottom 8 are at a SERIOUS disadvantage. Nothing more, nothing less. Everyone knows the same schools are going to keep winning 6a. It’s why there has been additions of classes in the past. To make things as balanced as they can and give good football teams a chance on as level a playing field as they can. The top and bottom of 6a is far more lopsided than any other class. Not even an argument

Huh? Are you a real football coach?? You just named 3 mega schools and implied all other 6a schools can be just as good. Merrillville, Valpo and Lafayette Jeff all have great football programs. They will probably never field a team that can beat Carmel without a serious enrollment boost. Let’s not completely ignore the advantage of having thousands of more kids to choose from lol. And shrinking 6a gives the teams at the bottom (aka the schools who are at the biggest disadvantage) a fair shake in 5a. That’s all. Carmel, BD and Warren aren’t going anywhere.

1a is separated by 3000 students? Going by percentage isn’t the right metric to go by for this. The little guys have a better chance to have a special team and overcome a 200-300 student difference than a bottom 6a team having a special team and overcoming a 1500+ student difference. 20 years straight an Indy school has won the state title in Indiana’s largest class. Does it need to get to 50 before you say there’s an issue? Indy will remain superior til the end of time. Least we could do is move the bottom 8 6a schools to 5a to give them a fair shot. Which would make 5a a lot more exciting

3821 and 2054 is still pretty damn close to being 2x. And regardless, that is still a humongous difference, your window must be pretty big. That’s an entire large 5a school. I don’t see how you or anyone could say that isn’t an issue. And if you compare the true top and bottom it’s 5286 and 2054.

My apologies, I do not think 7 classes would be the right move. 24 in 6a and then the remaining 8 get moved to 5a would be ideal. Then the ihsaa could choose what to do in regard to balancing the classes if they wanted. Could move 5a to 34 schools or 36 or 40 and move others down as they see fit. We all love even numbers but having 1-2 teams out of a class have a first round sectional bye is not the end of the world and is a good trade off for a more balanced 5a and 6a.

Yes because finding a place for 8 schools would be just so incredibly difficult. Jesus

I think DT hits the nail on the head. Top 24 in enrollment move to new 7a, coupled with the success factor (possibly adjusted slightly) seems like the best answer to me. It’s easy for people to say these teams outside of Indy just “need to do better.” On the outside, sure that looks fair but people fail to talk about how big a factor geography plays into this. Kids in Indianapolis grow up differently than all the other kids in the state. They have access to the best coaches, the best competition and all the attention needed to be great. For every great athlete in Fort Wayne or The Region or Lafayette there’s 4-5 just as great Indy athletes. And I’m not just talking about big recruits, I’m talking about the kid who’s too small to be a big recruit but has been competing his whole life with the best kids in the state and has truly earned his role on the team by having to beat out not only more, but better competition than the rest of Indiana.

Just wanted to know everyone’s thoughts, never suggested a 7a be created. Tried to be neutral in the original post and bring up points for both sides. It’s the off-season.

Just asking, you don’t see a problem with Indys dominance of 6a? Not disagreeing with you

Since the creation of 6A Indiana hs football, Indy schools have won all 8 state championships. Prior to that, Indy schools had won 12 straight state titles in 5A. Is there even a plausible solution out there to balance the playing field? It would seem silly to create a “7a” that consists of roughly 16 or so of the largest Indy schools, not to mention it sounds far less exciting. But Indy’s domination has gotten to the point where you can’t help but think that maybe something should be done. Indy schools have won 20 in a row of the largest class state titles, and there is really no end in sight. Penn and Snider were 2 of the perennial powers in Indiana for decades, yet they have both seen a recent decline that they have not experienced before. Yes I know Snider won a 5A title 4-5 years ago, but they are firmly stuck in 5a and don’t really seem to be anywhere near of fielding a state champion caliber team anyways. Merrillville had a really talented team last year with a couple really good studs, yet their 2 losses last year both came in lopsided games to Chatard and Westfield (tremendous football teams who were both undoubtedly in the top 5 regardless of class). What is it going to take to see a 6a state champion out of 6a? I can honestly say I don’t think it will be anytime soon. What i want to know is do people think the creation of a “7a” ,consisting of the largest Indy schools, the answer or even something that would ever be considered? I want nothing more than for literally anyone outside of Indy to win a 6a title for the sake of parity within the state but I just don’t see anything being done about it anytime soon. Then what would you do about the large non-Indy schools who are in the top 16 in student population? Do they join 7a due to their enrollment or stay in 6a and have a very significant numbers advantage over the rest of the remaining 6a schools? It would feel wrong having Penn with 3300+ students in 6a and have Perry Meridian with 2351 students in 7a just due to their location.

You make this list for the past 3-5 years and Warren is undoubtedly near the top.

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