Boilernation

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I disagree. Their run game by the time the Tourney rolled around was no joke. Not alot of 4A defensive front 7's could have handled it for 4 quarters.

I was in attendance as a young and misguided ND fan at Solider Field on 9/3/94 to see Ron Pawlus' first start for ND against Northwestern. He was the ultimate chosen one. I think Beano predicted multiple Heisman Trophies.

I thought this guy was the chosen one:

Who in 3A has a QB that can get a scholarship to Cincinnati and a WR that can play at Southern Illinois? That Memorial offense was on a different level than any 3A offense this year. Chatard rolls through 3A once again and pads the trophy case.

Prove it. The Vikings weren't flashy. But not many 4A teams had a defensive front seven that could have handled Valpo's big OL and 6' 230 RB (Davis) running power off tackle all night.

My wife is a Hamilton Heights grad. I'm involved in the area a bit. They have a solid coach there in the younger Kirschner who is active in the community and putting the program in the right direction. There is ZERO chance they beat Chatard.

I completely agree 5A watered down. Just don't think it's as bad as some say. And if the problem is that a select group of teams in or formerly in 4A (Cathedral, Roncalli, East Central) along with generational great teams (Columbus East, New Pal) can win at 5A then maybe they shouldn't have been in 4A in the first place and voluntarily stepped up a class. Looking at this year, I'll be curious to see if East Central's playoff SOS would have been stronger at the 5A level. Looking at enrollments, you are spot on. 2A-5A would be MUCH better if it was 1A that was split into 32 teams. That would have put the following teams into 5A: Kokomo Northridge Evansville Reitz East Central Hobart New Pal Roncalli

Stick with who cares. I rather combine 5A and 6A, create a 5A and 5AA and make the split at the end of the year based on analytic measures. It won’t be perfect, but it’s better than what we currently have.

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 😀.