Boilernation

And it what point does cancel culture go north and strip VHS of the Vikings name? Trojans in Chesterton? Senators in Washington Twp? Cherokees in Morgan Township? Indians in Portage? I'm beginning to think the moview PCU was foreshadowing our actual future.

How is Valpo U doing financially? I didn't realize they had to drop their Law School a few years back. I would imagine their Athletic Facilities have to be among the worst in The Valley.

I don't think the AD's woud be thrilled about having their teams in different conferences. I was referring to the NE8 because you had mentioned Leo and East Noble in a previous thread in regards to them joining up with some of the SAC. I skimmed through your post and didn't notice their exclusion. My mistake. Regardless, Penn and Elkhart to the Duneland makes far more sense than them to Fort Wayne. I-80 makes it a smooth trip for all involved. Any benefit of Penn/Elkhart being on the same timezone as Fort Wayne is out the window when they spend 45 minutes minimum of weaving through Amish Country just to hit US 30. Then it's another hour minimum just to hit I-69. They could just save time 30 minutes into the trip and round up all Yoder's in the area of Nappnee and play at NorthWood. Penn would be in the Duneland now if Elhart Central was offered membership a while ago. Timezone differences withstanding, I believe the real alignment you'll see is Penn and Elkhart, MAYBE New Prairie, joining the Duneland. Penn already has regular season matchups with most of the Duneland in all sports.

So, are all Conference alignment decisions based on football, or do we restructure for each sport? Getting back to reality, when talking of the current structure of the NE8, keep in mind this Conference was formed because certain (if not all) of the schools in the Conference no longer wanted to align with Carroll and Homestead. Going bigger isnt always better. Just like in Business. Find your sweet spot and only grow if you can scale the growth. For instance, one could certainly argue Pike's athletic program was far better in Conference Indiana.

Here's a good one: Shaquil Barrett: Undrafted, via Colorado State when Nebraska-Omaha shut down their program.

I would guess rural communities in the hills of Southern Indiana where they still wax poetic about Bobby and Damon. Personally, I have felt for a while that baseball is king in NWI. I could see football and even baseball being bigger deals in Hamilton County over basketball. I would say basketball is king in Marion County. Football in Allen County. I would imagine the large field houses in urban areas that have allowed Indiana kids to play baseball and football year round has probably hurt basketball.

I didn't know you guys played in '93. Knew about the '94 and '95 games. How did the hold your '93 offense to 3 points? Wow. Did you guys click late in the season. I know you lost to Portage in week 1 and murdered us in Regionals.

I have no idea if true. But, I tend to buy into the montra where there's smoke there is fire. It's likely true if you're hearing about it out in Avon.

That would be Noblesville again 😀. I'm looking at the following teams to trend updward: Kokomo: Year 2 of the Austin Colby era could see the Kats battling Lafayette Jeff for NCC supremacy Gibson Southern: Went above their weight class last year and took some lumps. Lost a close one to Southridge in Sectionals. Probably a little bit of a homer pick considering who their QB is, but with an experienced D1 QB I just have a gut feeling that Hart is due for another run.

If he's not a student, which I'm guessing he's not, I think DE hit the nail on the head with the gif of the dad from Friday Night Lights. The schtick of everything blowing, coaches being flameouts, etc., makes me feel like I'm reading posts my nephew would have wrote when he was 12.

You've been on this board as long as I can remember going back to my time at Purdue. So, late '90's, early 2000's. It's in your blood, man. You can't give it up. Just accept it and stop threatening to leave. It won't happen my friend.

Matt Mullen would approve

Nice to see the son of an Indiana great finally get his chance after a lengthy career as a DC. He was a beast as a LB/QB on Castle’s 94 5A Title winning team.

BINGO! I'm dreaming of Watson, the reality is Marcus Mariotta.

Wow, $27M. I just can't see that happening. I'm sure Nagy has been reminding Pace on a daily basis that he can't work with Mitch again. Which begs the question, what exactly is the plan. Phillips and George dodged any questions in the presser regarding their committment to Nagy/Pace. Whether they ride with Foles for a season or throw out a rookie QB, the outlook doesn't look good for next season. Have Ted and George committed to giving them at least 2 or 3 seasons to turn it around? If it's a 1 season chance to turn it around they should have just fired them now.

I agree. The current stadium holds 50% less than what they're building. Noblesville does have a good fanbase for home games and would sometimes have an overflow crowd, but theose were accomidated with endzone bleachers. A stadium holding upwards of 8-9K is going to look empty fairly often.

At worst, they're already at parity. Let's not forget Dwenger has had their season ended recently by two different NWI schools. NWI and Fort Wayne have a long standing Semi-State rivalry between the two of them. It's never been lopsided in FW's favor. What is lopsided in FW's favor is the amount of D1 talent they produce. Per capita (100,000), I wouldn't be surprised if they exceed Central Indiana.

A ceiling of 3rd or 4th is still competing in my book.

You think? I disagree. I have the uneasy feeling they’ll try riding Foles for one season to groom his replacement. Or, they get someone via trade. I would be shocked if Mitch even gets a franchise tag. IF Watson would agree to the trade, would he be worth what Houston wants? A poll of execs said the asking price would start with 3 1st round picks.

Plus, the Packers should be able to walk away with their division, which puts them right back into the bid for a 1st round bye and home field advantage.

I didn’t catch every game. Those I did watch the O-Line was getting blown off the ball. I get your point and I think there’s a lot of validity to it that’s hard to argue. Just offering a contrarian viewpoint. Noblesville is still growing at a very strong pace and the decision was made a year or so ago to expand the current HS as opposed to building a 2nd HS on the west side by Westfield. They may lose some good QB’s and WR’s to pass happy offenses, but they’ll get their share of move ins as well. For instance, I know one of their top Freshman who has the size of a TE/DE played middle school ball in one of Chatard’s feeder Catholic schools. i do hope to see some sort of balance in the offense week 1 against Mt. Vernon. What you saw against your team is exactly what Mt. Vernon did. They stacked the box and terrorized Noblesville’s O-Line. Noblesville attempted 8 passes the entire game.

Merrillville’s past two teams and Valpo’s State Runner Up team could have definitely competed in the HCC. Last year was an odd year for Valpo with the amount of practices and games they missed. I wouldn’t go as far as calling northern Indiana dead just because HCC and MIC rule the roost.

Noblesville didn’t fair much better airing it out with a QB that’s currently on IU’s roster. I get what you’re saying and at times I was too disgusted to watch them last year. I’m still willing to give Sharpe time to build his program, though my opinion doesn’t really matter. And if it works, it’s really a mute point if good passing QB’s and WR’s from Noblesville will go elsewhere. Just win without them. I’ll tell you they likely won’t leave if they also play baseball as that’s the premier men’s sport in Noblesville. Who knows. Maybe he’ll adapt the offense like Moore did with Jackson if he has a QB that can throw. Maybe, because of limited practice reps, he was using live games as practice for installing his offense. Honestly, with the way our line played, a passing game would have been non existent. D-Lines would have feasted on the QB.

Similiar to what Lake Central recently did, Noblesville has a brand new stadium currently under construction. It should hold up to 8-9K. https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/noblesville-build-new-high-school-stadium/531-de9df832-5824-45d3-8cfb-d56703d7ccf7

I live in Noblesville. My kids go to Noblesville schools. I watch a lot of their games. I just want them to win, no matter the type of offense they run. Last year, their OL wasn't close to being good enough to run that offense. Hopefully, next year is a different story. Noblesville does have a solid youth football program, ironically called The Grinderrs, but I'm not sure if they're even running his offense.