Frozen Tundra

I personally think the Terre Haute schools were trying to get ahead by not allowing themselves to be at the mercy of the other Conference Indiana schools. The writing was on the wall when the Mid-State Conference accepted Bloomington North as its newest member. With five CI schools left, you have to decide whether you’re going to get out before it all crashes down on you or if you’re going to sit on your hands and let others beat you to the punch by getting out. The Terre Haute schools decided to be proactive so they found a conference willing to take them in instead of putting themselves in a desperate situation down the road where they may not have had any conferences looking for new members.

Which part is causing this?

Problem is, the EIAC has shown no interest in taking in Jennings County. I’m guessing one of their schools would have to leave first. And if anyone were to leave, my guess is it would be Rushville or Connersville. There’s been chatter of potential conference restructuring in east-central Indiana with the Hoosier Heritage Conference possibly losing New Castle, Yorktown, and Delta. The problem is, while a new conference involving those schools might be a good fit geographically for Rushville and Connersville, is it a good fit competitively? It should also be mentioned that Harrison High School in Ohio is in need of a conference as theirs is about to cease to exist. They haven’t received any invites from Ohio conferences and have looked west to Indiana as a result. Due to their proximity to and rivalry with East Central, one would have to think the EIAC could be a possibility. My question would be why the EIAC can’t expand to ten members when they are split up into big school and small school divisions? Ten members is only a problem when there are no divisions.

Sucks they couldn’t land the guy from Texas.

I didn’t like it for the fact all the teams didn’t play each other. It was still a seven game conference schedule.

Just curious but what history are you referring to? Conference Indiana has only been around since 1996.

Breaking news from Kyle Neddenriep. I wonder what happens with Bloomington South, Columbus North, and Southport now. Do they find new conference homes or does the exit of the Terre Haute schools make Conference Indiana attractive to other schools looking to make a move?

I’ve got nothing against Jennings County. I have so many connections to the area that it’s hard not to root for them. However, the whole dynamic of this situation is just weird. Unless I’m oblivious to it, I’ve never seen a previous situation with which I can use as a precedent. To me, if you’re not willing to play a full conference schedule then you should be out of the conference (at least just in football). Honor your current schedules with HHC teams while also allowing both sides the ability to find replacements and then get out of the agreement if both sides find replacements. That’s just how I feel personally but I don’t make the rules so it is what it is. I’ve said my peace.

Dead serious question. Let’s say Jennings County plays two or three conference games and goes undefeated (i.e. BNL, Seymour, and potentially Jeff). Let’s also say Columbus East, New Albany, and Floyd Central go 4-1 as they end up going 1-1 against each other and 3-0 against BNL, Seymour, and Jeff. In this scenario, does Jennings County get to be conference champs? If so, do Columbus East, New Albany, and Floyd Central also get to be conference champs? I’m completely aware this isn’t a likely scenario but I’m curious as to how it would work given the scheduling imbalance?

I guess I’m just struggling to understand why they can’t just go independent in football only. They should remove themselves from the conference so everyone else plays five games each to determine a conference champion (no imbalanced schedule). At the same time, they can play every HHC team (sans New Albany) unless they are able to mutually agree with HHC teams to schedule new opponents, if available. If you’re not fully committed to being in the conference then why not just leave or why not have the conference remove them? I understand it’s better for Jennings County and the bigger HHC teams to end their series and move on but let’s not pretend a game with Jennings County is a conference game if this is the route we’re going.

Are you saying East and Floyd have agreed to this for 2026? They’re still playing them in 2025. Only New Albany is off the schedule and I did hear it was mutual. Even if it is mutual though, it still doesn’t make it right. Athletic conferences are mainly for scheduling purposes. You get together with other schools and you decide on a number of games that all schools within that conference will play against each other. Sometimes conferences are too big and you don’t have the ability to play every other team but the number of conference games you play is at least a number that every team within the conference plays. This number is what allows for conference champions to be crowned as there isn’t a scheduling imbalance. If Jennings County wants to just play BNL and Seymour then why are they allowed to play two conference games while the rest of the teams play 5-6 games? Again, even if this is mutual, what’s the point in Jennings County being in the HHC? Just go independent and you can still play Seymour and BNL. Jennings County can’t get the EIAC or the MSC to bite on taking them in. From my perspective, the dropping of HHC teams from their schedule looks like they’re wanting to go independent but in a slow transition. Madison went independent overnight and it meant they had to play three schools from Kentucky and one from Hammond just to fill their schedule. It looks to me like Jennings County is trying to have more control by dropping New Albany this year and maybe dropping East, Floyd, and Jeff the next few years. Can’t say I fault this thinking from their perspective as it is in their best interest. However, as a fan in general, I don’t like the conference schedule imbalance this presents. It feels like they’re one foot in and one foot out. Just be all or nothing. I will say I do believe it is in the best interest of Jennings County to leave the HHC. A rural school with a shrinking student population can’t compete with these growing city schools. The gap has really widened over the last decade. I know excitement for football is gone. Fan support and student section support isn’t what it once was. Player turnout is suffering because kids don’t want to get blown out constantly and they’re tired of coaching changes every two years. Jennings County needs to get out of the HHC and get more competitive/winnable games on the schedule.

Warren Mitchell told me your boat will be gone but not because you sold it. He said it’s an eyesore and the Homeowners Association is going to have it repoed since Angel Skinner ratted to him that you weren’t making the payments on time. If you hadn’t led her on about a French lick then there’d be no trouble. However, when you took her to French Lick she got pretty upset because that’s not what she was expecting.

Logic? If you’re in a conference you should play every team in your conference. If you don’t want to play every team you should leave or be expelled.

I wouldn’t say it’s more severe now. With the advancement of science and technology, I think more storms are labeled as severe these days. If we had had this back then there would’ve been more storms labeled as “severe” back then as well. The 90s had some crazy weather and the 70s were even crazier. Also, fear mongering drives views/ratings so more people freak out about it now due to the coverage on the news, YouTube, and social media.

So I was looking at the schedules for HHC teams and I noticed a couple of oddities. First of all, John Harrell has New Albany playing both Bloomington North at home and Silver Creek on the road on September 26th. I knew MLB did split squad games during spring training but I didn’t know IHSAA was allowing this for regular season football games! But, in all seriousness, what I found to be more interesting is that Jennings County and New Albany are always week 3 opponents and yet they aren’t playing each other this year. Jennings County will be playing at Eastern (Pekin) while New Albany will be hosting Brownstown Central. I wondered if this was also a typo but found out from a reliable source that this is legitimate. Jennings County and New Albany won’t be playing each other. Therefore, those two will only play five conference games. How is this allowed?

Based on voting history, that would be correct.

The idea that this site and his Facebook page are “competition” is weird to me. How is talking about high school football “competition”? The way I see it, come here if you like it better. If you like his stuff better, go there. If you like both, then you’re free to go back and forth. But whatever you do, remember it’s about the kids and the game we love. That should be the focus.

Nah Illinois gets to keep St. Clair County (East St. Louis) or they can pawn them off on Missouri. The only land we should give up to Illinois is Lake County. Maybe we can throw in St. Joseph County so they can have an exclave like Russia has with the Kaliningrad Oblast. But the rest of northern Indiana should remain with Indiana.

If we get southern Illinois then I definitely don’t want the county that contains East St. Louis (St. Clair County). Don’t want the county north of it either (Madison County). Basically, no St. Louis metro counties.

I’ve been told this has been in the works for awhile, that Bloomington North has wanted to split away from Bloomington South for several years. When the Mid-State looked into expanding from seven members to eight back in 2017, Bloomington North applied back then while Bloomington South didn’t. However, Perry Meridian was chosen. I was told Bloomington North had considered rejoining the Hoosier Hills Conference as a result but ultimately stayed in Conference Indiana. When Greenwood was accepted into the brand new Hoosier Legends Conference, that opened the door for Bloomington North to apply again.

Per the Mid-State Conference X account:

It’s been a common theme lately where coaches have to step down because coaching takes away so much time from their jobs and family. Or maybe it’s been going on forever and I just never noticed.

If Madison got added and Jennings County didn’t, there would be some hurt feelings here in Jennings County. Not everyone would be upset but there’s a growing number of folks that want to be in the EIAC.

I completely missed in the article that it said Talawanda had already found a conference. If Harrison were to be added, do you think the EIAC would be fine with an odd number of teams or do you think they would add another team just to even it out?

I say invite all four (Harrison, Mount Healthy, Northwest, and Talawanda). Put them in the big school division with East Central and Connersville. Lawrenceburg and Batesville go to the small school division. East Central could still schedule South Dearborn and Lawrenceburg in inter-divisional games and Roncalli in the non-conference. Still leaves another open spot in the schedule as well. My opinion doesn’t matter but I thought it was fun to think about.