Boilernation

I listed to a lengthy interview with Mike Wilbon on Chicago's ESPN station yesterday. He's on NW's Board of Trustees and was in on a lot of the meetings that took place over the past several months while Northwestern held an internal investigation. Similiar to what you said, he said Northwestern had to raise the bar on their response and the status quo of retaining Fitz with a lengthly suspension wouldn't be good enough. He did say that the new President acted on his own when first suspending Fitz and then firing him. It wasn't a group decision. Regarding the letter from the team, per Wilbon, they had enough corrobarative witnesses to know it was happening and it was known on campus that it was happening. He quickly dismissed the letter. Another comment of his I found interesting is that he talked about the number of high profile NW Alums there are in the Sports industry (Agents, Execs, Journalists) and mentioned he heard from a lot of upset Alums that were going to hold back on the checks they write if Fitz was retained.

This story is wild for various reasons: Northwestern tried sliding the story through with a Friday newsdump and announced he would be getting a brief suspension. The Northwestern Student ran newspaper then runs a story over the weekend shedding light on what actually happened. Were the leaders at NW completely unaware of this soon to be released report? They now look incredibly foolish. What was Fitz thinking!?! The guy had it made. The bar is set so low there that 2 crappy seasons in a row didn't even come close to putting him on the hot seat. It's 2023. You can't get away with barbaric hazing rituals nowadays. It will always get leaked.

I would be surprised if Fitz coaches another game for Northwestern. Not sure how he can survive this one.

I would say Roncalli, Dwenger and Snider all over Hobart as the Brickies couldn't sustain their success past Howell. Though, credit to the Bricks for one heckuva run during the '80's and '90's. I know what it was like to be in the old Brickie Bowl during those years and it was a very special time. Time will tell if Osika can have just a small fraction of the success Howell had.

Did Crown Point hit the transfer portal? I see D1 recruit Patrick Clacks (WR: Andrean) and Junior QB Noah Ehrlich (Hobart) who supposedly holds a Miami(OH) offer are both listed as playing for Crown Point in 247Sports. Either the Fort Wayne schools beat Crown Point to the punch in scheduling Central Indiana schools or the 'Dogs settled on not testing themselves in the OOC schedule. I get that Lowell is a very old south Lake County rivalry game that's not going anywhere, but scheduling a mediocre Chicago Public School program like Taft is a headscratcher. The 'Dogs ran the table in The Region last year and fell to Lafayette Jeff in the Sectional Championship. They're going to try running it back this year without a litmus test from Central Indiana. Penn, Lafayette Jeff, and the Fort Wayne 6A schools will all face tougher OOC comp in the regular season. Seems like a disadvantage for Crown Point.

One thing Valpo really has going for them is they are built to win in November. As mentioned above, they killed Snider and Whiteland by continuing to run off tackle over, and over, and over again with a power running game. It'll be the same story this year with a presumably healthy 6'0 220 Travis Davis at RB and a huge OL anchored by 6'6 270 Toledo committ Matt Hofer at Tackle.

Well, it appears I'm relatively clueless when it comes to Logansport athletics. No offense to the HC when I say this, but I just assumed Logansport as an Athletic Department played at a level above the HC. Guess I'm wrong. It still makes zero sense to me that Jeff and Kokomo wouldn't want to side with Harrison and McCutcheon. The irony in that NCC meeting that resulted in Harrison/McCutcheon getting the boot is the remaining members go from seeing Harrison dominate to it now being Jeff or Kokomo.

Eh, I saw Heights in person twice last year and Central Catholic once. I think Logansport could have taken them. But, I wasn't just referring to football. Considering all sports, wouldn't Loganstport dominate most of the current HC? Maybe I'm completely wrong. Your last line is why I think there needs to be some teaming up. McCutcheon and Harrison don't want to be on Independant island. Kokomo and Jeff should be seriously thinking about why they're holding onto the old glory of NCC basketball. Move on for the benefit of your entire athletic departments. Logansport seemingly left the NCC because Harrrison and McCutcheon were booted. I'm assuming they would much rather join up with Lafayette schools and Kokomo than the HC. West Lafayette? IDK. They pretty much dominate the HC in football. Is that not the case in most of the other sports? Maybe Western and/or Northwestern was a reach.

This is interesting. A lot of potential dominos could fall depending on the decision the HC makes. I don't know why they would vote them in. Logansport is too big for them. Does this Conference work if certain members can swallow their pride and/or make big changes? Logansport Harrison West Lafayette Lafayette Jefferson McCutcheon Northwestern Western Kokomo

I was hoping they would go with Wright after some stuff I heard about him in the past week. I'm going to need to go back and watch the Alabama/Tennessee game. Will Anderson is on record saying Wright was the best OT he played against this year.

Seemed inevitable. Sounds like he was QB #3 coming out of Spring. I know nothing about QB #2 other than he won an 8A Title in Florida.

Agreed! A lot of people don't realize that any development east of Summer Road and South of 216th Street goes to HSE and not Noblesville. HSE's district goes all the way out to the edge of Lapel and up to the border with Hamilton Heights (216th Street). I know that Whitestown is booming and a decent portion of it goes to Lebanon while the other portion goes to Zionsville. Is Lebanon the town growing as well? I agree that they should be looking to the future and reaching out to Harrison/McCutcheon to explore opportunities.

Makes absolutely Zero sense to me why Jeff would choose the travel nightmares and lack of overall competition in the NCC over sticking with Harrison and McCutcheon. One could argue it would benefit Kokomo all around to get out of the NCC and follow the Lafayette schools.

Totally see your point of view. I just have a gut feeling he'll create a way to play with a major chip on his shoulder and prove certain people wrong. Totally seems like a boom or bust situation.

And the Jets legitimately join Buffalo as a contender to the Bengals/Chiefs with the anticipating trade for Rodgers. That team was a QB away from being very solid last year.

You would think the Bears are definately going QB in the 1st round next year if Fields doesn't progressive this year. The question is how much progression is good enough for Poles and Flus.

Yep, and I'll credit Poles for saying himself that what's most important is how he produces with those picks.

That's great. It feels really good as a Bears fan to finally have a front office that is competent. I've heard one the NFL insider say that Carolina was trying to extend out to the 2026 1st round pick and that Poles insisted the deal would only work if Moore was added in lieu of the 2026 pick. That's awesome. Moore isn't a Chase, Jefferson, Higgins etc., but he's still a solid #1 with a good QB.

That 2024 1st rounder from Carolina could end up being a top 5 pick. They could be awful next year with a rookie starting at QB.

Elanco is going to be developing the old GM Stamping Plant grounds for their new Corporate HQ. That would be directly across the river from this project. Elanco's CEO is dedicated to turning that area around. The Company I work for owns some industrial buildings near there off of Harding Street that we would love to flip to Co-Working office space if Elanco's presence changes the market in the area. For now they're being rented for industrial use.

Absolutely he did.

With possibly the worst O-Line and WR Corps ever assembled. A little bit of truth and a little bit of hyperbole in that sentence.

TQL Stadium in downtown Cincinnati is really nice and the average attendance for 2022 was 22K. I could see the Eleven being able to avg. at least 15K per year. The apartment market in downtown Indy is booming and this project would add to the market if they follow through on the full development. I could see this project being a success, but I do think it would help tremendously if the Eleven could get into MLS.

I would fit that demographic. I watch English Premier League every weekend. I would likely watch the Eleven in person at this stadium a few teams a season if they were in the MLS. But, the MLS product isn't close to being on par with Europe and it's a tough watch for me.

Indeed. Will we find out how Carmel became more culturally aligned with the MIC?