Boilernation

Cathedral’s lines are very big. Completely controlled the game on both sides. D line created a lot of opportunities for the LB’s and S to come up and make clean hits.

Any SW Indiana fans know the meaning behind Alices for Vincennes? I'm a big fan of nicknames that hold meaning to an area. Speedway Sparkplugs (Pretty Obvious) Whiting Oilers (massive Oil Refinery on Lake Michigan in Whiting) Hobart Brickies (I've heard there used to be a large brickyard in Hobart) Floyd Central Highlanders (I'm guessing it has to do with being on high ground overlooking the Ohio River and Kentucky Noblesville Millers (Old Mill plant in Noblesville) LaPorte Slicers (Meat Slicing Manufacturer)

Delphi Northwestern Mt Vernon Pioneer Tipton Western Lafayette Jeff McCutcheon Carroll North White Covington Clinton Central Rensselaer Tri West

For Morton, 5'11 JR WR JoJo Johnson and 6'2 JR DE Dierre Kelly both have multiple MAC offers. 6'2 SR Credell Prather is the QB. He should get picked up by someone. I know he visited Marian early in August. I definitely agree with your comments regarding Coach Kinsey bringing exposure to the Gov program.

@Gipper Why is Chesterton Second City? Is that in reference to Valpo being the 1st Porter County city? I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're not a big Russ Radtke fan. No offense to an outstanding Mishawaka program, but it's going to be a long season for the Red Indians if the Cavemen beat them that badly.

Very true. Can the young Pettit sling the ball around? Ha! Lafayette Jeff has to be licking their chops at the prospect of seeing 3 Duneland teams and not Carmel in their Sectional.

Louisville Trinity Center Grove Ben Davis North Central Lawrence North Lawrence Central Zionsville

I’ll give the nod to Valpo as Top Dog. Curious to see how City bounces back after losing some solid offensive production. Valpo’s D is going to strangle the conference. Speaking of D, Crown Point’s supposedly looked really good against Penn. They have really good size on the D-Line. I agree about Merrillville. This could be a breakout year for them. That large OT going to Minnesota is going to open up a lot of running room. I think Portage will have a average at best season. Lost all of their offensive output and a lot of defensive starters. LaPorte is a wildcard with the new coach. LC and Cheesetown will bring up the rear. Week 1: Merrillville over Andrean by 10 Hobart over Chesterton by 13 Crown Point over Lowell by 6 City over Griffith by 31 Munster over LC by 3 NP over LaPorte by 7 Valpo over Penn by 7 Mishawaka over Portage by 15

Is Rodney a New Pal fan in disguise trying to “Lou Holtz” the Dragons?

I’m assuming he’s from Lake Central as I don’t recognize him as a Portage Indian. Did he start for LC? LC wouldn’t lose players to Andrean and Chicago Mt. Carmel if they could figure out how to replicate the success they had with Elmer. IMO, of course.

Yeah, I have zero data to support that claim. I just know baseball in Noblesville, Fishers, Zionsville, Brownsburg, and Avon is a year round affair with youth travel teams utilizing field houses to practice through the fall and winter. My assumption would be these schools have very good athletes playing baseball that don't have time for football. But, the data point could be minuscule and meaningless.

Hamilton Southeastern was thoroughly dominated a few years ago by a very average DuPage Valley team (Waubonsie Valley), but I'm guessing that was just an outlier. I used to live in Downers Grove and I'm very familiar with Chicago HS football. At the end of the day the teams in Indy are good for the same reasons the teams in Chicago are: enrollment, coaching, and socioeconomic advantages. Based on a stark difference in population, Chicago just has more of what you can find in the MIC/HCC. There are definitely some differences between the two areas though. In Indy, Cathedral is really the only Private that can hang with the large 6A schools. In Chicago, Loyola, Naz Academy, Mt. Carmel, St. Rita, sometimes Marist, Brother Rice, Providence Catholic, can hall hang with the 8A schools with Loyola and recently Naz Academy among the best in Illinois. Mt. Carmel has fallen off a little and Joliet Catholic isn't the beast they used to be. I do think you won't find a program similar to Ben Davis or Warren Central in Chicago. City schools like Phillips and Simeon have the raw talent, but they don't have the depth. Suburban schools like Bolingbrook and Homewood-Flossmoor are as close as you can get to Warren/Ben Davis, but I believe the enrollments of Warren/BD are significantly higher. IMO, there are a lot of really good HCC quality Chicago suburban schools that would struggle against the speed of Warren/Ben Davis. Maine South out of Park Ridge is consistently one of the better 8A programs in Illinois and they were embarrassed by Warren a decade or so ago.

I don't know if it's possible to close that gap between the MIC and HCC. A few reasons off the top of my head: 1. Baseball is HUGE in the HCC. A majority of the MIC won't lose talent to baseball. 2. The Marion County Townships are enormous in population. Washington, Warren, Lawrence, and Wayne are all over 100,000. There are cities in Indiana with over 100,000 in population that don't just have one HS. Granted, Lawrence does have two. 3. Talent in IPS districts will find their way into MIC schools 4. I think it's safe to say, based on enrollment, that nobody in the HCC will ever be as dominant as Carmel

Agree. Noblesville's D was very good last year. Offense, not so much. I agree with the OP. Avon/Brownsburg at the top, a lot of 4-3 or 3-4 records and Franklin Central at the bottom. Someone, maybe Temptation, mentioned something in a previous thread that was noteworthy. Brownsburg is getting a lot of hype with the numerous D1 recruits they'll put on the field this year, but their last game was a 38-0 drubbing by their neighbors to the South.

IMO, Valpo’s move to 5A makes them an immediate contender to rep the the North. They are going to have some very large and disruptive lines on both sides of the ball.

The Hammond schools consolidating into one Hammond High? Is that a real possibility? Throw in Munster joining the Duneland and you have a DT wet dream.

I would expect Valpo's Cooper Jones to also end up at Notre Dame if offered. His father Eric (a Portage grad) was a very good DL for Notre Dame in the late '80's/early '90's. Congrats to Fisher. That's an education that will really pay dividends in his post College life if the NFL isn't in the cards.

Novak announced he’s joining the Portage staff.

Interesting. Thanks for the schooling!

Hackett would have been an excellent addition to the Duneland. Similar to Mason in football, I believe he would have turned City basketball into a force. I'm no expert on tax revenue and school funding. With that said, does Michigan City have strong tax revenue from Nipsco, Blue Chip, and possibly the lakefront mansions lining the coast from Long Beach up to Michiana Shores? Are the schools funded poorly?

Now that I could definitely understand. Great point!

I believe Geffert will be an Assistant at Munster. Interesting development. He seemed excited to return to Griffith and return the Panthers to a dominate force. A record of 26-9 the past 3 seasons is outstanding compared to the Pickett era, even though it was against a watered down Greater South Shore schedule. Seems odd that he would leave his alma mater to go west on 45th Street and be an Assistant.

*out

Per Al Hamnik. No update on his future plans. Tough beak for the Panthers.

Does anyone have any updated pictures of the new stadium construction?