Boilernation

How many of those 7 were won by Cathedral and New Pal? To refer to Cathedral as a 4A program is about as big of a joke as Chatard playing 3A ball. When New Pal was cranking out 5A titles they were among the best in the state and tangling with the likes of Center Grove. Using analytics to gauge depth of a class provides better perspective than cherry picking to prove a subjective point with programs who were good enough to be competing at the 6A level.

You split 4A in half to get the average of 67. Split 5A in half and the top half has an average of 39. Just go with Top 10's and it's 6 one way half dozen the other. I believe the original argument was that 4A was much stronger than 5A. At this point I've kind of lost interest. I will say 5A will provide much more of an entertaining playoff. East Central and Chatard are primed to easily cruise through 4A and 3A. Without looking at enrollments I'm not sure how it would impact EC and Chatard or even Roncalli, but I do agree with some mentions on this thread that 1A should be cut in half and start bumping up.

I have to admit I chuckle at the mentions of any sub 5A school not named East Central competing with Snider. The Panthers would bring size, speed and depth of the aforemention attributes to the field that a large majority of the sub 5A schools never see.

I took a look at the Sagarin Ratings by Class and came away with the following: Average Sagarin Rating: 5A: 97 4A: 133 3A: 155 Percent of teams in the Sagarin Top 100 5A: 65 4A: 39 3A: 28 IMO, this confirms my belief that as "meh" as 5A appears it's still not as weak as suggested.

Yeah, anyone knocking East Central likely hasn't seen them play. They are without a doubt a Top 10 overall team in Indiana.

No offense taken. It's all subjective opinions anayways that can't be solved by Sagarin ratings. For example, LaPorte at 173 beat New Prairie at 65.

Then maybe a select group of those teams should stop stacking the trophy cases against unmatched opponents and head up to 5A. Snider recently beat New Pal for a State Title and Valpo gave New Pal’s best team the closest game they received all year. There’s not as big of a drop off as you think between the non Catholic below 5A powers and and the current 5A. As meh as the 5A field is, I’d still argue the bottom of 5A is arguably stronger than the average opp Chatard and East Central will see in the playoffs this year.

You’re naming programs that are light years better than their competition when they’ve competing lower than 5A. Chatard, Cathedral, East Central and Roncalli are all programs far and away on a higher playing level than 4A and below programs. Throw in New Pal (Whose closest game was Valpo) and Columbus East teams who were all arguably the best ever in school history (among to 5-10 in state history for New Pal) sounds to me like you’ve sold the argument that 4A and one team in 3A can be very strong at the top. That doesn’t necessarily mean the classes as a whole were stronger than 5A.

Interesting start to the season for Richardson. He'll likely be out for a month now. I read he was also injury prone at Florida. At this point the Colts need to make sure they always have a real Pro like Minshew at backup. They can still win with him.

Yep. But on the flip side the winner of New Prairie and Hobart gets 2 weeks to regroup and heal. I think it's safe to say both squads could get away with not using all starters for 4 quarters throughout the remainder of Sectionals if they play their cards right.

My dad played in the Chicago Public League for Schurz HS when Butkus was on the Southside at Vacational. He said even in HS Butkus was feared man. Regarding the Beloved, Washington's D may stink as much as Denver's, but at least the Bears fully exploited it. That shows some kind of progress is being made. And Fields is looking more comfortable. On to the Vikings with potentially a 3rd string RB and a beat up OL.

I couldn't like this enough. Spot on. The story NEVER returns to mention the presumed guilty were innocent all along. Names tarnished forever. New click bait headlines created. And the beat goes on.

Speaking of streaming, Peacock needs to step their game up. I have You Tube TV and it's so easy to fast forward through the stoppage of play on a recorded game and not miss action. I didn't catch the Purdue/Illinois (Peacock only) game live and went back to watch it on demand. It's impossible to fast forward between plays or stops in action. You inevitably miss 1 or 2 plays while doing so.

40-20 Final. Fields and Moore continuing to find rythm together. Flus lives to see another day. Though I'm skeptical he would have been fired with a loss. On to the Vikings. No reason the Bears can't win that one.

He should be already. The way he’s handled the Chicago media in the past 2 weeks indicates a guy in way over his head. No fire or publicly holding his team accountable. Listening to Tomlinson after Pittsburgh’s latest loss is a complete 180 from Flus’ demeanor. Everything is a positive spin even when he doesn’t even know what’s going on, I.e, Claypool.

Bring in Harbaugh after Michigan wins the Title 😀.

Westfield Fort Wayne North Franklin Leo Martinsville New Haven Greenfield Central Pendleton Heights Danville Southridge Sheridan

Agreed. Zionsville can give anyone a fight, but Lebanon is the only team that Zionsville put away before the 4th quarter. And they have lossed 3 straight. I don't think they're going to flip the script. Avon could have a shot to take this one in the 4th quarter. But, I agree with Zionsville by 7 or less Noblesville will be starting a lot of Seniors Friday who have seriously given that program 100% every night since they where starting or getting major PT as Sophomores. I would love to see them finish out what could be their last home game with a major upset. I could see the energy of the night keeping it close and then Brownsburg pulling away for a type of W you're predicting. The 'Dogs are feeling different this year. Two teams who will enter the 6A Playoffs as darkhorses teams nobody wants to play. Both very well coached. Both with a lot of talent, including D1 type of talent. I'll go with Westfield by 6. They bounced right back and beat Avon the way they should have. I'll bet on Gilbert not losing 2 in a row in front of the Westfield crowd. Agreed. FC can compete with HSE. HSE just has too much talent and a very good OL with a TE and some WR's that can play. I'm surprised that Hamilton kid at WR has only fielded 1 Power 5 Offer (Kentucky) unless his offer list is incorrect on 247.

Forgott at add Big Moe took Elder to the woodshed last night to run the table in the GCL South. What Indiana HS Football did to Moeller this year has to be more impressive then the time Cathedral essentially won the GCL South. Congrats to Ben Davis, East Central and Center Grove.

That was about as surprising as the Brownsburg/Westfield game too me. Warren is just completely jekyll and hyde. I wouldn't be surprised if they beat Carmel next week. I'm assuming they're too disfunctional this year to stand a shot against Christian Brothers.

Valpo is too high. Travis Davis is likely out for the year with an ACL injury. Major loss for the Viking offense. We're talkinga about a 6' 230 RB who had over 200 yards rushing in the State Championship last year. Zionsville, FC and Noblesville should all be aobve the Bloomington schools. HCC is cannibalizing itself. I seriously doubt the 3 of them would struggle competing for the top spot in Conference Indiana. Crown Point is probably more in the 13-20 range. I still like Center Grove in the #1 spot, but it's hard to ignore what Brownsburg is doing.

@BobrefYou should find footage of the City/Lake Central game. 3:25’ish mark on City’s game winning drive. WR literally drops the ball behind his back and the ball hits the ground. Judge on field was about to call incomplete when the sideline judge runs in to call it a catch. How does he make that call over the official who actually had the proper view?

And having a very easy schedule for a 6A NORTH "contender". I use that loosely as I rully expect CP's run to end in Regionals. But, I will say they have the talent and coaching to make a run. I just don't think the've seen the comp or have enough jimmy and joe's to beat Carroll or Penn. Valpo lost Davis to an inury in the Crown Point game. There is speculation he may be shelved for the year. I don't know how they could beat Snider in a rematch without him. 2nd year in a row he's been hurt. Last year was earlier in the season and he was healthy enough to run all over their opponents in the playoffs.

I was at the Zionsville/HSE game. The final score was a little deceiving. Zionsville jumped out to a 14-0 lead and HSE took it back at 17-14 going into the half. It was 24-17 HSE with only 4 minutes left and HSE was lining up for a punt. They converted a fake punt for a long gain and then ended up kicking a FG. HSE picked off a pass on the following Zionsville posession that turned into a 26 yards TD pass to Hamilton and then Zionsville scored on a 70 yard pass to Hilton. Donovan Hamilton finished the game with 8 catches, 225 yards, and 3 TD's. For Zionsville, Hilton had 3 catches, 118 yards, and 2 TD's. HSE makes Hamilton a focal point of their offense. For the life of me I can't figure out why Zionsville doesn't do the same for Hilton. His 1st TD catch was a short screen that he took 37 yards for a TD and used some nice spin moves to alude HSE defenders. Other than a short slant that he caught every other pass thrown to him was on a long fly route. They typically just line him up out wide and have him run fly routes. They need to find ways to get the ball in his hands near the line of scrimmage and not just relying on him to out maneuver DB's on poorly thrown fly routes. Anyways, like you said, Zionsville (outside of the Noblesville disaster) puts up one helluva fight every Friday night. They also played HSE with their backup QB who is a Sophomore. He played very well for his first varsity start against a stout HSE defense. The starter left the Noblesville game late in the 4th quarter. Not sure how serious his injury is. I agree though. Brownsburg should roll.

Yeah, he makes NFL caliber throws. I didn't realize he was injured that many times. Agree it could hurt him in the draft and if he falls he has the potential to be a huge steal. I just looked at 3 different mocks. One had him at #3 overall and the other 2 didn't have him in the 1st round.