Frozen Tundra

Thank God. They’ve got through enough coaches. Glad to hear Coach Parker isn’t leaving.

Jeff has a new coach? Didn’t know that. It’s not even listed on John Harrell’s website.

I know about East, Seymour, and Floyd Central. I’m just curious with how New Albany compares to Jeffersonville and BNL.

I’m curious to see how far New Albany falls. Not sure what Jeffersonville and BNL have but it seems possible that New Albany could go from 1st to 6th.

The process of seeding teams isn’t saying that the 1 seed is going to win it all or that the tournament is going to play out exactly how the teams are seeded, especially not in a single-elimination format. Seeding is based on numbers and how teams look on paper based on their regular season results. It is a way of evaluating the success, or lack thereof, of teams during the regular season. The purpose is to reward the best regular season teams by making their road to a championship a bit easier than those that didn’t perform as well. This also rewards fans as it gives them the best possible matchups further along in the tournament. Does it always work out that way? Obviously not. See March Madness for example. However, the goal is to give more value to the regular season, reward teams that played well during the regular season, and give the fans a more exciting tournament. This isn’t a knock on you when I say this but I struggle to understand the opposition to seeding. Seeding is used in pretty much every professional and collegiate sport in the USA. It’s not a difficult concept. It is effective. And if we’re going to devalue the regular season by letting every team in the state tournament, then let’s counteract it by putting some value into it by seeding the teams. Conference championships are great but what does that really mean in relation to the postseason? Not to mention, there are quite a few schools that don’t even belong to a conference. So let’s give some meaning to the nine-week regular season. Even if we only seed the top two teams in each sectional and put them on opposite sides of the bracket then at least that’s something. With all the analytics and advanced metrics we have at our disposal today, I just don’t understand how we couldn’t make it work.

You’ll want to take New Albany off this list. They lost a crap ton of seniors off last year’s team. Last year’s team was a once-in-a-generation team.

Northview to Conference Indiana would only be a desperation move by CI to stay in existence. Kind of like how the American Athletic Conference is bringing in teams like Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UTSA, Charlotte, and UAB to make up for losing Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF. They’re not bringing those schools in because of athletic success or even financial value. They’re bringing them in so they don’t disband.

Yep. I’ve been saying this as well. It’s a compromise that gives more than it takes. It keeps things pretty much exactly how they are but it just seeds the top two teams in each sectional and keeps them on opposite sides of the bracket. If the sectional is loaded with three or four good teams then you have the chance of playing the third or fourth best team one round earlier than if you seeded all three or four. One round isn’t a big deal.

I agree with @DT. I think the Mid-State Conference would be their destination. If that didn’t work out, there’s always the HHC as a back-up plan.

So if Conference Indiana were to disband, what would come of the Terre Haute schools? The other four teams in the CI have conferences nearby that they can join. I’m not sure what the Terre Haute schools would do.

What’s the deal with Jay County? How is a 4A team like them so bad in a small school conference?

With Conference Indiana on shaky ground, would Southport to the MIC make sense? Just curious if that would ever be a possibility.

I wouldn’t know. I wish they were in the Hoosier Hills Conference but I know of at least four teams that wouldn’t like that 2+ hour drive.

I was not aware Lawrenceburg and South Dearborn were switching divisions. John Harrell’s website still shows them in the 3A Division and 4A Division respectfully. Thanks for the info. I definitely like that split much better. I was wondering if East Central would ever go independent in football. If the EIAC keeps the divisional split then I think they’re happy to stay. If the EIAC went back to doing away with divisions and making everyone play each other then I think that would force East Central to go independent. They want that competition and they don’t get it by playing the other seven EIAC schools. The divisional split suits them much better.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an article to provide as evidence and I can’t remember if I read about it or if I was told about it. However, when Jennings County, Madison, Seymour, and Columbus East started looking into leaving the HHC six years ago, Jennings County and Madison were looking into going to the EIAC. The EIAC wasn’t interested though because they liked their eight team, two division format. They liked having that perfect split with four teams in the 4A division and four teams in the 3A division. Having said that, I’m curious what the EIAC thinks these days. The previous classification cycle saw Franklin County move down to 3A. The newest classification cycle has South Dearborn also moving down to 3A. Therefore, East Central and Connersville are the only remaining 4A members in the EIAC. The divisions are still the same, however, and are still labeled as the 3A Division and the 4A Division. I wonder if that will ever change. Personally, I’d like to see them return to no divisions and a round-robin schedule. I don’t think East Central would go for it though. I think they like having the freedom to schedule Ohio schools and Indy privates.

Does anybody want to take a shot at how the standings will look this year? I feel like this is the most wide open the conference has been in a very long time. I personally don’t know what everybody has coming back this year. Columbus East will have much more experience and I believe I heard Floyd Central and BNL will be as well. New Albany will take a step back. I’m not sure about the situations at Jeffersonville and Seymour. As for Jennings County, I don’t think it matters what they have coming back. Yet another coaching change means yet another system to learn.

Because they had originally wanted to go to the EIAC as a tandem a few years ago but the EIAC didn’t want them.

I think they will eventually but they’ll want a new conference first. My understanding is that they would rather be in the HHC than be independent.

Bumping this up just for @DT 🤣

I’m curious if you guys literally mean not throwing the ball at all or if you mean rarely throwing the ball. I ask because the 2017 Columbus East 5A state championship team rarely threw the ball due to their three-headed rushing attack. There were a couple of key moments in the state title game where they had to complete a pass to keep a drive alive (one of which turned into a TD) but, for the most part, that was a run-heavy team.

The southern half is definitely much weaker. The discrepancy in depth between the north and south might be the biggest in the state at the 5A level. As for the southern teams, Decatur Central and Harrison are the favorites to make it to state. Ironically, they’re in the same sectional. It’ll be interesting to see how that game goes. There are other teams to keep an eye out for even though they’re not threats to win state. - Whiteland is always in the top 10 mix. A solid program that can’t seem to ever break through regionals. I know they lost a lot of key players off of the 2020 9-2 team. So after going 6-4 last year, can they return to or even top that 9-2 mark? They should be the favorite in sectional 14. - Sectional 15 is interesting because of two teams: Bloomington South and Columbus East. Bloomington South always seems to have a lot of talent but they’re never able to stay healthy enough and/or disciplined enough to put it all together and make a run in the postseason. - Columbus East is coming off its worst season since 2002. It had won 107 straight games against conference opponents but went 4-2 last year in HHC play. The streak of 17 consecutive conference championships came to an end as a result. It was anticipated that East would have a down year in 2021 but it went worse than some expected. And while the talent pool at the school has gone down over the last few years, the team is much more experienced than last year. Will this translate to success? Was last year an anomaly? Or will this be the norm without Bob Gaddis as head coach? Definitely something to keep an eye on. - Castle is the favorite in sectional 16 although Evansville North has gone from a losing team to a team finishing at .500 over the last three years under Joey Paridaen. Can they build off of that and finally have their first winning season in 15 years? They’ve beaten Castle twice in the last three years. Can they break through and win a sectional for the first time in 22 years? These are the teams and storylines I’ll be following closely in the southern half of the state. Can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

The WANE 15 YouTube channel posts videos every Monday starting with week 1 and ending the Monday after all the local teams are done playing. They cover Fort Wayne area teams (specifically the SAC, NE8, NECC, and ACAC). Sometimes they’ll throw in Warsaw, Wawasee, Tippecanoe Valley, and others. The Monday videos look ahead to the week’s match-ups. The final Monday video of the season recaps the entire season and they hand out fictional awards to players, teams, and coaches. There are also videos posted every Friday night with highlights of that particular night’s games. These videos are just the segments taken from that night’s news telecast. I watch the Monday and Friday videos every season. Keeps me updated on what’s happening in northeast Indiana football. I think WANE does a better job of covering local football than anybody else.

I once considered taking an LFL job. For the love of football of course.

If it happens, it happens. However, I’ll be here until it happens.

Personally, I hate the Facebook groups. It’s harder to keep track of the posts because they’re not separated by topic and it’s just way easier to miss posts. Also, I feel like the overall IQ is much much lower on there and I don’t have the patience for it.