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West Lafayette and the rest of the conference


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How many years will it be before someone in the Hoosier conference beats West Lafayette?

WL regular season records

2022  9-0

2021  9-0

2020  8-1 lost to Lafayette Jeff

2019  8-2 lost to Lafayette Jeff and Lewis Cass

2018  9-0

2017  8-1 lost to Crete-Monee (IL)

2016  7-2 lost to McCutcheon and LCC

West Lafayette seems to be getting better and the other teams seem to be getting worse.

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39 minutes ago, Tippy said:

How many years will it be before someone in the Hoosier conference beats West Lafayette?

WL regular season records

2022  9-0

2021  9-0

2020  8-1 lost to Lafayette Jeff

2019  8-2 lost to Lafayette Jeff and Lewis Cass

2018  9-0

2017  8-1 lost to Crete-Monee (IL)

2016  7-2 lost to McCutcheon and LCC

West Lafayette seems to be getting better and the other teams seem to be getting worse.

Don't know if WL JV is just a skeleton crew or not, but after their varsity beat Harrison's varsity 27-14 in the opener, Harrison's JV literally named the score against WL's JV 47-0 ... missing two PATs to put the score at 47 which was Omarion Dixon's number when he played there.

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8 minutes ago, foxbat said:

Don't know if WL JV is just a skeleton crew or not, but after their varsity beat Harrison's varsity 27-14 in the opener, Harrison's JV literally named the score against WL's JV 47-0 ... missing two PATs to put the score at 47 which was Omarion Dixon's number when he played there.

I know Harrison will be fine the next few years.  So there is some hope that someone in the conference will beat WL in the next few years.  WL has literally named the score against most of the the teams in the HC the last few years.

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There really hasn't been any other real strong teams in the Hoosier in the past few years, with the exception of the occasional Rensselaer, Tipton and LCC teams.  

I think the real question is who emerges to challenge?  There's a lot of football tradition in the Hoosier, but some teams have stepped backwards.  Who will step up? 

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A large part of the problem lies in the size of some of the schools. Being a 2A school trying to reload to beat a school like WL year in and out is difficult. Even Rensselaer isn't the biggest 3A and have been 2A until recent. If youre gonna get a team that can challenge every single year, it has to come from either HH or Western in my opinion. The other teams in the conference will have that good class every 4 to 5 years that can challenge, but if you want someone every year I think those are the two teams that can make it happen. Most will say well WL is only 3A so there isn't much of a difference, but WL isn't your average 3A school by any means.

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11 hours ago, foxbat said:

Don't know if WL JV is just a skeleton crew or not, but after their varsity beat Harrison's varsity 27-14 in the opener, Harrison's JV literally named the score against WL's JV 47-0 ... missing two PATs to put the score at 47 which was Omarion Dixon's number when he played there.

As I understand it, the JV is primarily freshmen and they do not play freshman games.

Absent the success factor forcing WL to move up, I don't see WL moving up or down from 3A.  They are solidly in the middle of the 3A enrollment rankings.

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2 minutes ago, nmsu_aggie said:

As I understand it, the JV is primarily freshmen and they do not play freshman games.

That would make sense as Harrison's freshman squad played LCC's JV team the weekend that varsity played WL. 

Harrison does the same thing with its freshman baseball squad.  They call it a second JV squad, Harrison has Blue and Orange JV, and most games scheduled are against JV squads and not freshman squads.

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1 hour ago, Spock said:

Rensselaer enrollment is currently 480. They have two extremely small classes coming up with around 80 kids on each one at middle school. Varsity team this year is primarily sophomores. 

I wonder if they aren't the smallest 3A team in the state. It is because of enrollment that they are up right? Not because of SF

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18 minutes ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

I wonder if they aren't the smallest 3A team in the state. It is because of enrollment that they are up right? Not because of SF

Yes that is correct. At that point in time we had 521 students. With the current classes at high school now the enrollment is 480. Then with two middle school classes around 80 kids each, look for the Bombers to close in on 400-420 students next cycle.

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Here are the enrollments:

Western (4A) - 840

West Lafayette (3A) - 754

Hamilton Heights (3A) - 731

Twin Lakes (3A) - 655

Northwestern (3A) - 605

Rensselaer (3A) - 521

Benton Central (2A) - 508

Tipton (2A) - 454

Lewis Cass (2A) - 413

LCC (2A SF) - 296

 

With enrollments like this you think one or more of those schools could at least field a team to knock off the Red Devils.  There are some strong traditions with some of these programs.  One or two weak classes shouldn't be an excuse.

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4 hours ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

A large part of the problem lies in the size of some of the schools. Being a 2A school trying to reload to beat a school like WL year in and out is difficult. Even Rensselaer isn't the biggest 3A and have been 2A until recent. If youre gonna get a team that can challenge every single year, it has to come from either HH or Western in my opinion. The other teams in the conference will have that good class every 4 to 5 years that can challenge, but if you want someone every year I think those are the two teams that can make it happen. Most will say well WL is only 3A so there isn't much of a difference, but WL isn't your average 3A school by any means.

True that WL is not your average 3A school.  They have the advantage of being a relatively small district located in an urban area that attracts an affluent population which values higher education.  They are more like a private school than a small town/community school, which is what the rest of the conference is other than Central Catholic.  They have similar demographics to what you see in their Catholic rivals across the river, and they are in a college town with easier access to more training and higher level competition in youth sports.  Every school in the Hoosier Conference other than West Side and Central Catholic has rural areas of their district and relatively small population centers.  West Side and Central Catholic are able to pull from a population center with over 100,000 people.  Most of the smaller rural communities that make up the rest of the conference don’t have that luxury.  Western pulls a lot from Kokomo and Hamilton Heights may get some families that don’t want to go to the 6A schools in Hamilton County.  West Side is probably more like Mishawaka Marian, Andrean, Chatard, and Brebeuf than Twin Lakes, Benton Central, Rensselaer, and Cass.

West Lafayette would fit in well as a member of the North Central Conference.

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9 minutes ago, Ballhawk said:

Here are the enrollments:

Western (4A) - 840

West Lafayette (3A) - 754

Hamilton Heights (3A) - 731

Twin Lakes (3A) - 655

Northwestern (3A) - 605

Rensselaer (3A) - 521

Benton Central (2A) - 508

Tipton (2A) - 454

Lewis Cass (2A) - 413

LCC (2A SF) - 296

 

With enrollments like this you think one or more of those schools could at least field a team to knock off the Red Devils.  There are some strong traditions with some of these programs.  One or two weak classes shouldn't be an excuse.

WL has traditionally floated around the top of the 3A class in terms of enrollment, but I wonder if they may end up tipping into 4A soon.  For a while, they were a closed-enrollment district, but I believe they are now opening up the district.  Harrison and West Lafayette are separated by roughly 5 miles, but it feels much closer.  Harrison will be a 6A school in the next classification cycle.  There are two housing areas that are just starting to build-out close by Harrison and that will pretty much cement Harrison in 6A and may well propel it past Jeff as the largest area school in just a year or two. I could certainly see some bleed over possible into WLJSH; especially as it has the unofficial moniker of Purdue employees' high school ... realistically, while WL has lots of Purdue employee kids there, there are plenty at the other area schools too. 

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3 minutes ago, HoopsCoach said:

True that WL is not your average 3A school.  They have the advantage of being a relatively small district located in an urban area that attracts an affluent population which values higher education.  They are more like a private school than a small town/community school, which is what the rest of the conference is other than Central Catholic.  They have similar demographics to what you see in their Catholic rivals across the river, and they are in a college town with easier access to more training and higher level competition in youth sports.  Every school in the Hoosier Conference other than West Side and Central Catholic has rural areas of their district and relatively small population centers.  West Side and Central Catholic are able to pull from a population center with over 100,000 people.  Most of the smaller rural communities that make up the rest of the conference don’t have that luxury.  Western pulls a lot from Kokomo and Hamilton Heights may get some families that don’t want to go to the 6A schools in Hamilton County.  West Side is probably more like Mishawaka Marian, Andrean, Chatard, and Brebeuf than Twin Lakes, Benton Central, Rensselaer, and Cass.

West Lafayette would fit in well as a member of the North Central Conference.

This would be more likely a consideration if WL bumps to 4A ... and in conjunction with Tech leaving the NCC. 

If they stay 3A in enrollment though, I suspect they would likely stick with the HC.

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When Tipton first came into the Hoosier Conference WL was not very good. Outside of 2001 Tipton was pretty average and beat WL like 5-6 years in a row. Then they got an influx of talent and have been good ever since. I think schools like Tipton, LCC and Rensselaer are always at least solid and are really good every 3-4 years. WL just seems to be able to reload unlike anyone else. 

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7 minutes ago, Fballfan15 said:

When Tipton first came into the Hoosier Conference WL was not very good. Outside of 2001 Tipton was pretty average and beat WL like 5-6 years in a row. Then they got an influx of talent and have been good ever since. I think schools like Tipton, LCC and Rensselaer are always at least solid and are really good every 3-4 years. WL just seems to be able to reload unlike anyone else. 

Great point! Before Lewis Cass joined the Hoosier Conference, they would play WL second week of the season. Up until about 2013, the series was very competitive. 2014 was the last year Lewis Cass played them Week 2. I was a sophomore on that team and I was in by the second quarter with the rest of my buddies playing WL freshman they were beating us so bad. 

That 2014 year was i believe coach Fry's first season as the head coach there and the Red Devils have been different ever since. Coincidence, I think not 😉 

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4 hours ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

Great point! Before Lewis Cass joined the Hoosier Conference, they would play WL second week of the season. Up until about 2013, the series was very competitive. 2014 was the last year Lewis Cass played them Week 2. I was a sophomore on that team and I was in by the second quarter with the rest of my buddies playing WL freshman they were beating us so bad. 

That 2014 year was i believe coach Fry's first season as the head coach there and the Red Devils have been different ever since. Coincidence, I think not 😉 

Almost.... I checked Harrells site and looks like 2013 was the year, you're probably thinking overall school year. Frys' mentor, Hall of fame coach Marshall Overley had Westside turned around long before that IMO ! That's why he's hall of fame ! 

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Correct, Rensselaer had a influx of transient students who were brought in by their migrant working families for the fall, SEPT count came, 521, by Christmas time we were back at 502.   Just one of those things.   So it goes, but like the 2 year opportunity in 3a, however in 2 year cycle, we will closer to 1a then 3a 

Also, give credit to Coach Fry and his staff on their weight room and speed developments that their school has bought into as a culture.  That's where it starts.  

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43 minutes ago, BendNotBreak said:

Currently... Neither WL or LCC are playing a championship caliber D

 

Q

True, but WL did hold Harrison to 14 pts and McCutcheon to 15 pts.  I bet WL scores more than 28 points on everyone else they play the rest of the regular season.  

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Rensselaer being as consistently successful as they have generally been over the years, and WL being in the 3A elite regularly tells you one thing: coaching really matters. And I’m not talking about @Coach Nowlin.😂🤣 Coaches Meeks and Fry are inarguably two of the best coaches around.

I was at Twin Lakes last night and, yes, there was a @Coach Nowlinsighting!

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3 hours ago, Bobref said:

Rensselaer being as consistently successful as they have generally been over the years, and WL being in the 3A elite regularly tells you one thing: coaching really matters. And I’m not talking about @Coach Nowlin.😂🤣 Coaches Meeks and Fry are inarguably two of the best coaches around.

I was at Twin Lakes last night and, yes, there was a @Coach Nowlinsighting!

There was a Loch Ness Monster sighting at Harrison last night, but it turned to just the way the light hit the powder that was tossed by the McCutcheon students at the opening kickoff.

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10 minutes ago, foxbat said:

There was a Loch Ness Monster sighting at Harrison last night, but it turned to just the way the light hit the powder that was tossed by the McCutcheon students at the opening kickoff.

Really? The IHSAA has specifically banned this practice. I expect the folks at McCutcheon will be getting a phone call Monday morning.

The fact is, this is a potentially dangerous stunt. Depending on atmospheric conditions, that stuff can hang in the air for a long time. There are reports of games being delayed 30 min. or more for the air to clear. And there have been instances of spectators with breathing issues, such as asthma, having to receive medical treatment as a result of breathing that stuff in.

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