Sectional 46 final looks to have been state championship

[speaglefan]

On 11/14/2020 at 4:49 PM, Donnie Baker said:

Damn Speagles I knew they’d score some points but I thought South Putnams could keep it even with the ground game 

Power back was out with broken leg, qb needed to fire the ball out quicker.  Miss queues etc....  Covenant is fast!  We never got started.  I thought we would put more points up as well.  
odd game for us only had 3 penalties, and they had 6.  That was a head scratcher.  It is what it is.  Wasn’t in the cards for us.  We had a good run.

[Bears62]

On 11/16/2020 at 8:42 AM, foxbat said:

It'd be nice if Jeff would pick up steam in 6A as 1A LCC and Jeff are less than a mile apart on the same road.  LCC and West Lafayette are about four miles apart and both won state back in 2009 and both appeared at LOS in 2015 with LCC winning and WL dropping their bid against Chatard.  Back in 2011, both teams made it to semi-state ... LCC advanced to a three-peat win at LOS, while WL dropped their semi-state bid to South Bend St. Joe.

I just don’t see how they can at this point. They simply do not have the athletes to contend in 6a in the postseason. Last year was the best team they’ve fielded in a long, long time and they ran into a tough Merrillville team. They’ve had athletes for as long as I can remember but I think they really lack size across the board on the O-line/LB’s/DB’s every single year. I think they are at that 29-31st spot in enrollment for 6a so they really need some good fortune to get bumped down to 5a. And they’ve had competitive game against some of the big dogs across the state recently (Carmel, Westfield, Merrillville) and Shanley is doing about as well as a coach can do. He’s creative with his play calling and installs the confidence in his guys that they can beat anyone. I thought Jeff was solid this year until they played Merrillville and then i realized how much of a mismatch it really was. And Merrillville is not much bigger in enrollment than Jeff if I’m correct. it’s gonna take a real special group of kids for them to do anything big in 6a and that’s not a knock on them. They’re always gonna have to play a Carmel, a Merrillville, a Westfield, maybe even a Homestead and some of the schools up there someday in sectionals and that will always be a daunting task. A 5A move for them would be tremendous. They’ve taken down Westfield and Noblesville in recent years, stick them in that sectional with Zionsville and give Kokomo the boot and you’ve got a tremendous matchup every year. 

[foxbat]

12 minutes ago, Bears62 said:

I just don’t see how they can at this point. They simply do not have the athletes to contend in 6a in the postseason. Last year was the best team they’ve fielded in a long, long time and they ran into a tough Merrillville team. They’ve had athletes for as long as I can remember but I think they really lack size across the board on the O-line/LB’s/DB’s every single year. I think they are at that 29-31st spot in enrollment for 6a so they really need some good fortune to get bumped down to 5a. And they’ve had competitive game against some of the big dogs across the state recently (Carmel, Westfield, Merrillville) and Shanley is doing about as well as a coach can do. He’s creative with his play calling and installs the confidence in his guys that they can beat anyone. I thought Jeff was solid this year until they played Merrillville and then i realized how much of a mismatch it really was. And Merrillville is not much bigger in enrollment than Jeff if I’m correct. it’s gonna take a real special group of kids for them to do anything big in 6a and that’s not a knock on them. They’re always gonna have to play a Carmel, a Merrillville, a Westfield, maybe even a Homestead and some of the schools up there someday in sectionals and that will always be a daunting task. A 5A move for them would be tremendous. They’ve taken down Westfield and Noblesville in recent years, stick them in that sectional with Zionsville and give Kokomo the boot and you’ve got a tremendous matchup every year. 

In this area, I think that Jeff is likely to be passed up in enrollment by 5A Harrison.  In driving my son to practice, we pass by a new subdivision that's currently being grated and divided.  Building will probably start soon.  A colleague of mine tells me that on the other side of the intersection where Battleground Middle School sits diagonal from Harrison's campus is another subdivision going it.  I think he said that it's estimated that there will be about 300 new households moving into that area.  Harrison's currently just about 85 kids behind Jeff.  You only need about 28% of those household to have a high school student in them to have Harrison catch Jeff and that doesn't account for any other growth.  Harrison's just starting to find their flex in 5A.  My son's on the freshman squad and they said this is the largest freshman squad in the school's history.  The freshman dropped their game with Westfield by just a touchdown this season spanked Jeff by three TDs.  Unfortunately, Harrison may end up in the same boat with Jeff ... too big for 5A, not enough horses to thrive there just yet.

Given what's in 6A and the top of 5A, I don't know if there's enough to "push Jeff down" into 5A.